


Omnia Mea Mecum Porto

by Selah



Category: Alice Nine, Jrock, L'Arc~en~Ciel, Lycaon (Band), Nocturnal Bloodlust, the GazettE
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, Light BDSM, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Non-Sexual Slavery, Original Character(s), Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:19:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selah/pseuds/Selah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illegally sold slave Uruha just wants to go home. It's up to Tora and his unit to make that happen. Of course nothing is ever that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As per literary convention, dialog in italics is a language other than default (so not Japanese), scenes in italics are flashbacks. This chapter is a bit on the short side (for me), but since this fic wasn't supposed to be chaptered _at all_ ... it was the only reasonable break point. I've been writing my little butt off in the hopes of figuring out for sure if I'd be able to finish this by the end of the month and I think I will, so... expect more soonish? Only Uruha and OCs appear in this chapter. Written for both of JRY's January challenges.

It had been too easy, Uruha should have known it from the moment he had gotten into the aircar and driven away without so much as a single alarm going off anywhere. And yet he had told himself not to worry about it. He had made his break for it in the middle of the busiest market in the capital city, they had been shopping for almost an hour, it wasn't his fault his “owner” still hadn't gotten around to invalidating his credentials. Clearly if the public transport system was willing to let him take a car, he had to still be in the registries as a free citizen. Nothing to worry about at all. How perfectly naive of him.

Well, he was certainly paying for that naivete now, wasn't he?

~*~*~

The shock of cold water thrown on his face jerked Uruha back to consciousness. Right, he had been caught, detained before he had even figured out the right way to get his sorry self back to Earth. One of his captors, the skinny one (well, skinny for an Anadolian) was complaining about something, but even after ten months, his grasp on the pidgin basic that was meant to make communication between the various aliens on Ceti easier was still pretty much terrible. It didn't help that every alien he had met in the last ten months seemed to think Terran = English and his English skills had never been that great. Absently, he wondered if they thought they were being kind, using the pidgin instead of Anadolian, then decided it didn't matter what they thought since he didn't have the words to tell them he didn't understand anyway.

A section of the bars at the front of his cell retracted and a man with skin darker than tilled earth stepped past them. He wore a perfectly pressed uniform with the insignia of the United States Navy on his jacket and for a brief moment Uruha dared to feel a flicker of hope. And then the man was asking if he spoke English and that hope wavered.

“ _Not ... many words_ ,” he stumbled, frowning with worry that he wouldn't know enough to make himself understood or even understand what he was being asked. The man asked something else, but the sounds didn't mean anything, slurring together in an odd cadence that made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. A third question in meaningless syllables and he shook his head. A fourth and Uruha slumped onto the metal bench with a whine of defeat.

“Do you speak Japanese?”

Those words he knew, immediately sitting up straight again. The officer smiled, finally moving to sit beside him on the bench.

“All right, good. I'm Commander Phil Ryan, United States Navy, from the Judge Advocate General division. How much do you understand of what's happened to you?”

“Ten months ago, I was a grad student at Tokyo University. A group of us came to Ceti for a biomedical engineering conference. On the last night of the conference I was kidnapped and...,” but he couldn't finish, shuddering at the memories of that place, of being treated like livestock and sold to the highest bidder. Squeezing his eyes shut, he hugged himself and tried to force back the memories of beatings and worse.

“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Commander Ryan said, breaking him out of his memories with a firm grip on his shoulder. “The bad news is the authorities here claim you sold yourself, which is legal on Ceti, and they have paperwork they say has your signature and thumbprint to prove it. The good news is the UN recognizes and requires a jitsuin for any documents involving a Japanese citizen to be considered legal, which they can't have. Unfortunately, the gentleman who bought you has already accused us of making up rules to try to deprive him of his rightful property, and as a Precept, he's making things difficult. We're trying to get the locals to transfer you to the Ruthie, so at least you aren't in an alien holding cell, but I can't promise anything.”

Uruha nodded, fisting his hands in his dun-colored prison issue trousers. Just when he had thought his nightmare was finally over.

“It's all right, Takashima-san,” the commander said, clasping his shoulder again as he stood up. “I wish you'd thought to run away sooner, but... We don't leave our people behind. Especially not civilians.”

Another nod as he tried to hold on to those words like a lifeline. He just wanted to go home and forget the last year had ever happened. Forget about dirty holding cells and shock prods and despair and the things his supposed owner had thought counted as perfectly acceptable entertainment.

“One other thing,” the other man said, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “According to our treaty, Terrans are citizens of the Alliance and as such, you're not supposed to be questioned without counsel of your choosing, meaning me or someone from my office. But this Precept, Raikos, he has a lot of pull around here. Not enough to get you summarily handed over to him, thankfully, but enough to be a problem. Just ... don't say anything, don't agree to anything, and for the love of God, definitely don't sign anything, all right?”

“My jitsuin is still in Tokyo,” Uruha said, forcing a smile.

“Yeah, well, let's not take any chances, okay? I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with more good news.”

The commander knocked on the bars, apparently a signal to let him out. That was when the niggling feeling that he was forgetting something finally managed to solidify into a solid question.

“Wait, Commander, what about the others?”

“Others?” he asked, frowning again as he paused.

“The Precept had others, other humans. He ... he was collecting us, I... What's happening with them?”

“This is the first I've heard of it, but I'll look into it. Are you telling me there's a secret human slave trade going on here on Ceti?”

“There was a half dozen of us at the auction, I think, and the Precept had ... I think there were ten of us, I'm not too sure. I ... I don't remember how many were bidding at the auction, but there were a few. I ... I'm sorry, I don't know much more about it.”

“It's all right, we'll look into it,” the commander said, nodding. “Like I said, we don't leave our people behind. We'll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

Uruha nodded again, watching the American leave. He hated the thought of having to stay in this cell for another hour, let alone a whole day. Not that he hadn't lived with worse in the past year, but the sterile, cold gleam of metal was really starting to get to him. Forcing himself to lay down on the unforgiving bench, he curled in on himself and prayed that he might be allowed to sleep peacefully until the commander came back. It was the best way he could think of to pass the time, just so long as he could keep the nightmares at bay.

~*~*~

_Uruha was exhausted down to his very bones. He had lost almost all sense of time, only that he had been trapped in hell long enough for the terror to have completely drained him. Surrounded by burly, ruddy-skinned aliens with entirely too many sharp teeth who kept barking things at him in words he didn't understand. Not that it mattered much - if he didn't do what they wanted fast enough, they just shoved and forced things along. There were ten of them crammed into a basement type room no more than two meters square, five humans and five aliens, and no one else spoke any Japanese. After the ease of communication at the conference, this complete lack was as exhausting as any physical deprivation._

_His stomach grumbled and twisted and he pressed his palm flat over the protests. He didn't know how long it had been since he had last eaten anything, but there was nothing he could do about that, either...._

~*~*~

Pain jerked Uruha back awake, something heavy, solid biting into his neck when he tried to move. His mind reeled, fingers reaching for his throat only to come up short. He was in chains again.

“I trusted you, you ugly beast, and this is how you repay me?”

Uruha froze, terror clawing at him again. Japanese, coming from the computer system, an obvious translation of the words being growled behind him. He didn't need to turn around to see who it was. Raikos.

“We only let the Navy man in to get your words for the computers,” the alien behind him said and Uruha could hear the sneer even in the translation. “We go home now.”

“No! No, you can't!” he screamed, uselessly thrashing against metal bindings and Raikos' ham-fisted grip. This couldn't be happening. He was supposed to have been safe. His nightmare was supposed to have been nearly over. How could this be happening??

“ _Home, now_!” the Anadolian snarled, and though the computer still translated the words from pidgin basic, it wasn't really necessary. Especially not with the way Uruha was being essentially dragged across the floor like a dog on a chain. He thrashed and flailed, hooking a leg on the bench support, only to have his head nearly jerked off when Raikos didn't stop soon enough.

“Ungrateful beast!” the Precept snarled when he turned around to see what had stopped their forward progress. “I give you food, home, clothes, and you do this? Useless! I should sell you to a butcher!”

“Why don't you, then?!” Uruha snapped back. 

“After the price I paid for you? Ha! Maybe after you've bred my females, made yourself useful.”

A thick sense of dread coiled in Uruha's stomach at those words. Not just for the prospect of being sold as livestock to be slaughtered, but even more at the thought of having to put up with his enslavement even longer. Of being forced to father children who would be nothing more than toys to this beast. Or worse, little more than livestock themselves.

“Walk. Or else.”

Even knowing what that “or else” was likely to mean, he couldn't do it. There wasn't anything to be gained by stalling, really; the fact that Raikos was even in his cell said plenty about whose side the local law enforcement officials were taking. No one was going to tell the Americans what was happening, no one was going to suddenly burst in and stop this, save him. Between the chains on his wrists and the metal collar around his throat, he couldn't even fight his way free to save himself, not that he had anywhere to go. Or any faith that, even if he somehow made it out of this cell, he would make it any further than that. The logical, reasonable thing to do would be to admit defeat, but he couldn't force himself to just give up and meekly go to his doom. Bracing himself for some horribly inventive new form of painful punishment, he flinched at the press of cold metal to his shoulder followed by the all too familiar hiss of an injector.

“I don't have time for these hysterics,” Raikos grumbled. Uruha could feel tears leaking down his cheeks even as the drug steadily stole his senses. It wasn't fair, not fair at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dark liberties/speculation taken in worldbuilding. Continued convention of italicized dialog being non-default for scene, but you'll also need to read context cues to tell when the dialog is English or Japanese, as which is 'default' will shift with context. Bunch more OCs plus most of the rest of the cast (with a last name invented for Satoshi because plot reasons). I feel like I probably could've done better with this chapter, but I'm on a time crunch, so....

“Amano! Front and center!”

Tora bowed to his sparring partner, then grabbed a towel as he headed over to where their supervising officer was waiting less than patiently by the gym entrance. That couldn't possibly be a good sign.

“Sir?”

“You've got fifteen minutes to get your sorry ass showered, presentable, and into the JAG office. Commander Ryan says we've got an emergency and you're my best guy for all things gone shitways.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, snapping a quick salute before making a break for the locker room. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the vote of confidence, but fifteen minutes was awfully tight. Only barely enough time to rinse off and throw on basic fatigues before double timing it up to the JAG office, the sheathed sword in his hands granting him immediate right of way through the Ruthie's busy corridors.

The JAG office wasn't the biggest compartment on the UNS _Ruth Bader Ginsburg_ in the first place, but the number of senior officers in it at that moment made it feel even smaller. Tucking his saya into his belt, he offered a perfunctory salute before approaching the conference table.

“Senior Mission Specialist Technical Sergeant Tora Amano, reporting as ordered,” he said, noting the presence of the UN Ambassador. Things must have gone impressively sideways, though he wondered why this conference was happening in JAG and not in one of the larger conference rooms. A thought he quickly dismissed; not his call, didn't matter.

“Good, let's get started then,” Commander Ryan said, pausing to allow for the shuffle of chairs as everyone found a seat. “At 1433 ship time yesterday, this office received an automated alert from a municipal station on the outskirts of Xendos province, Ceti. At the time, we were led to believe this was a result of them arresting a Terran and done in accordance with his rights as a Japanese citizen. However, the Anadolians have since scrubbed any record of detaining Mr. Takashima and now unilaterally deny that we were ever contacted. The Anadolian central registry _now_ claims Mr. Takashima returned to Earth ten months ago, however the Ruthie still has cached data copies of documents submitted to my office yesterday purporting to prove that Mr. Takashima sold himself freely at the Capital market ten months ago. Unfortunately, Ambassador Ahmad has confirmed that cached copies aren't going to mean much to the Anadolians. Which is where you gentlemen come in. I already told the kid we don't leave our people behind. I'm not prepared to let these slavers make a liar out of me. Especially if there are others we don't even know about being held along with him, and I have no reason to believe there aren't at this point.”

And this was, Tora supposed, the reason he had been summoned. Sitting up in his chair a bit more, he glanced down the table at the Marine colonel who was the closest to his chain of command of those officers in the room, surprised to get a brief nod from her before she started speaking.

“The keeping of humans as pets or even labor slaves is not illegal under Alliance or Ceti law, meaning this whole situation could quickly devolve into a diplomatic mess,” she said, nodding once to the ambassador. “That said, if the sale records really have been scrubbed, then they've done us a favor, as we can then extract Mr. Takashima as a kidnap rescue operation. And if that extraction team just _happens_ to scoop up the rest of this Precept Raikos' human collection at the same time, well, they'll just have to be held here on the Ruthie until we can get things properly sorted, right Ambassador?”

“Any way you go about it, it's going to make for a big, noisy mess,” the Ambassador agreed with a frown of his own. “The Alliance Council is debating another anti-slavery measure, but no one expect this one to pass, either. It's one of those common sins no one much wants to discuss and Earth isn't exactly in a position of moral superiority to be making a whole lot of noise on the issue. On the other hand, possession is nine-tenths of the law, even out here; once we get those people aboard the Ruthie, we'll be in a better position to at least negotiate _their_ freedom.”

“We can do sensor sweeps of the Precept's compound,” one of the other naval officers said, his accent making him probably British Intelligence. “That should at least be enough to confirm that's where he's keeping our people. At that point, Sergeant Amano, we should be able to get your team on the ground with enough intel for you to run the op on your own terms. We can use the _Echidna_ to drop you and shift _Hekate_ and her escorts to offer better coverage once your activate. Call it a training exercise or something.”

“How long?” the battlegroup's admiral asked, the first words she had spoken since he had come into the compartment.

“We'll need at least twenty-two hours for observation and planning before we can do an insertion, assuming he hasn't moved his human collection to some other location. Longer if he has,” the Brit replied, eyes turning on Amano. “Sergeant Amano?”

“My team'll be ready for drop whenever you're ready for us, sir,” he said with a nod. “Other than that, I won't know a time frame until I'm on the ground.”

“They tell me you're the best, Amano,” the admiral said, a tightness around her eyes betraying her worry for the situation. “It'll be your op; keep us in the loop, but run it your way.”

“Aye aye, ma'am.”

“All right people, let's make it happen. Like the commander said, we don't leave our people behind.”

A quick, crisp salute and Tora left the compartment, heading back down ship into Marine country. Best case scenario, they still had most of a day before drop, but that was no reason not to start getting his team together now. At the very least, he and Yukihiro could start going over the intel the navy types already had for Ceti and this Precept Raikos. He had a feeling they were going to need every scrap of it they could get.

~*~*~

Finding out humanity wasn't alone in the universe was supposed to have been the ultimate solution. As the popular theories had told it, humanity was either supposed to come together and put aside their petty differences in a spontaneous outpouring of goodness ... or destroy itself in a mad panic. 

As was so often the case in such things, reality had ended up being somewhere in the middle. The less than discreet method of Anadolian first contact, namely by threatening to annex the entire star system into their holdings, a threat they had broadcast across every radio, television, and satellite channel, had made hiding the truth impossible. The only slightly less invasive declaration of intervention of the Nathi and Earth's subsequent inclusion as a protected state member of the Nathi-Sibylline Alliance, junior rank, at least kept the worst of the panic responses at bay. But humanity wasn't prepared to be united so easily and more than a few factions had threatened armed rebellion against a re-chartered United Nations that was not only given supreme authority in planetary matters and sole representation to the Alliance Council, but also empowered, even _required_ to build and flag a fleet of starships, crewed by personnel, largely military, drawn from each and every member nation and required to attend a minimum of two years at a UN-run starship operations academy. A situation that grew worse when it came out that primary mineral rights on all extra-planetary bodies had been assigned to the UN in an effort to more quickly secure raw materials and capital to build the fifty plus ships the Nathi were demanding as the bare minimum Earth produced to defend itself and participate in Alliance trade. That was, as Yukihiro's grandfather had always told it, when the shit really hit the fan.

That was also usually when the old man would go very quiet and just a bit glassy. Yukihiro had quickly learned as a young child not to press past that point. History classes tended to gloss over what had happened during the so called Lost Years that had immediately followed, though the records were out there, if one was willing to dig a bit to find them. Guerilla warfare tactics, armed rebellions put down by heavily armed alien troops, the narrow avoidance of what had almost been a nuclear holocaust.... 

All of that had happened long before Yukihiro's own parents had even been born, but even in the present, the scars still remained. Fractured nations, strained allegiances, and a UN starship fleet that was still heavily segregated, only the largest ships having truly mixed crews. And a bad habit among the American upper brass to look down their noses on anyone who wasn't American. It made serving on a mixed ship like the Ruthie an at times thoroughly uncomfortable experience, especially when one of the ranking officers got a bug up his ass thinking anyone who didn't wear a USMC uniform was somehow less competent. Colonel Reyes knew better, particularly when it came to their unit, but not all of her officers were so open.

“ _You look like shit, Yuki._ ”

“I feel like it,” Yukihiro mumbled, sticking to Japanese as much because they were alone in the compartment as because it was their native language. “I should go check on Hiro-kun and Suzuki-san, but I'm not sure I can stand up, let alone walk that far.”

“I can do that, where are they, showers?” Tora asked, glancing over his shoulder from where he was replacing his koshirae on its wall mount. “Did that fucker Bates get a burr up his butt again or something?”

“Hiro-kun is supposed to be soaking for his back and Suzuki-san offered to spot him in case he passed out. And of course it was Bates. Who the hell else would it be?” he muttered, sinking back onto his bunk with a disgruntled huff.

“I could think of a few. That man has serious inadequacy issues. His penis must be the size of a peanut,” Tora muttered and Yukihiro had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Not that he would have gotten in trouble for it, not with Tora, but he was pretty sure laughing would hurt at this point.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew he was being startled awake by Tora's obvious irritation.

“You just stay put, both of you. I'll take care of this. And have dinner sent up here. Where're Toshi and Ichiro?”

“They're not back yet?” Reita asked. Yukihiro pushed himself up as well, frowning when he noticed Hiro curled up on his side on his bunk but no sign of the last two members of their unit.

“Bates really let Toshi have it, they must still be in Sickbay,” Yukihiro said, scrubbing his face with one hand as he tried to force himself into a more alert state. He was more than a little startled by the low growl that came out of Tora, even more surprised when the team leader snatched his koshirae from its wall mount and stormed out of the compartment.

“ ... that seem a bit overly pissed off to anyone else?” he asked, glancing at the other two men. 

“Maybe,” Reita said with a shrug. “It _is_ the second time this week.”

“Someone remind me why I haven't quit and gone home? Seattle was such a nice city, quiet, peaceful,” Hiro mumbled, his words a bit muffled for his being face down on his rack. Yukihiro couldn't help a low chuckle at that sentiment, one he'd heard more than a few times now.

“Because if you just up and quit, you don't get benefits. Besides, that's what the Americans want, for all of us to just give up and go home so they can insist they need to be allowed to send more of their own people to the academy to make up the difference. You know the only ones they trust are themselves and the Brits. And I'm not always so sure they trust the Brits either.”

“They sure as hell don't trust any of us _chinks_ ,” Reita muttered, a curl of distaste on the English derogatory term used by some of the Americans to refer to anyone wearing a uniform from an Asian nation. He wasn't wrong, but the whole conversation felt stale, probably because they'd had it more than once in the past. Hardly the first time some American Marine officer had gotten his panties in a twist and worked them over harder than necessary. Not even the first time Bates specifically had pulled this sort of thing. Or the first time one of them had ended up in Sickbay as a result. It wasn't in line with regulations, but even when Tora complained, nothing really ever happened. Didn't matter that their unit consistently pulled down the highest marks, didn't matter that Tora could wipe the floor with some of the very same Marines who professed to be so worried about company proficiency. It was naked racism, pure and simple, and Yukihiro didn't see it ever changing, and them hashing it over like this didn't do anything to change his mind.

“Bet you're wishing you'd joined the USMC about now, ne Hiro-kun?” Yukihiro teased.

“Fuck no,” the younger man growled, rolling over onto his back. “Fuck those fucking jarheads. Like I'd give up citizenship just to still end up being treated like dirt by those cretins. I sure as hell wouldn't be on this ship right now if I'd gone that route!”

“Speaking of cretins, you recovered enough that I can finish your hair yet?” Reita asked. Hiro grunted something sort of like an affirmative, waiting for Reita to get close before using the man as a lever to pull himself upright. His face looked as exhausted as Yukihiro himself still felt and he winced. They were probably all going to end up sacking out early tonight, each in their own separate bunks, and even then tomorrow was going to be unpleasant. Maybe they'd get lucky and Tora's rampage would actually do something productive for a change. Yukihiro wasn't going to hold his breath. 

~*~*~

Tora had diminished his rage to a low simmer by the time he reached Sickbay, though the white knuckled grip on his sword's saya was a clear indicator that it was only just barely contained. Clearly he was going to have to take his complaints higher up the chain of command, this nonsense had gone well past what might possibly be considered hazing. It was dangerous and if either Satoshi or Ichiro were forced to sit out the upcoming mission, he would personally see to it that heads rolled and stripes were torn from sleeves.

A nurse intercepted him before he could get more than a few steps, casting an obviously disapproving glance at his sword.

“Can I help you, sergeant?”

“Just looking for my men, Lieutenant,” he said, forcing himself to smile. _It's not her fault_ , he reminded himself, tightening his grip on his saya a moment.

“The two JSDF airmen? They should be released soon, wait here and I'll go check up on them for you.”

Tora made himself take another deep breath, holding it in for several seconds before exhaling. If they were set to be released, then it must not have been that bad, right? Or so he kept trying to tell himself, slowly pacing as he waited. And waited. And waited some more. He was just about to go looking for himself when Ichiro came in, pushing Satoshi in a chair.

“ _What the fuck is that??_ ” he growled at the two men, pointing at the flexible walking cast that encased Satoshi's left leg from his foot to halfway up his thigh.

“ _Walking cast with boot. Doc says I'm stuck in it for the next six days or so, no big deal. Avulsion fracture with the ACL, comminuted fracture to the tibia, but it's really no big deal, Boss_ ,” Satoshi replied, shrugging. Tora forced himself to take another deep breath before he did something shameful. Like hitting Satoshi for being so casual about his own injuries. They were parked in station keeping orbit in a friendly star system with no expectation of seeing anything but the Ruthie's corridors any time soon, at least from Satoshi's point of view, so why not take it casually? Even if it was yet another example of his team taking it on the chin because of someone else's bigoted bullshit.

“ _You can stop making that face, Boss_ ,” Ichiro added. “ _Doc's already filed a report with the brass._ ”

“Ok, take him back to our berth,” he said, ignoring the odd looks they gave him for switching back to English. “And if those three haven't managed to make the arrangements yet, get dinner sent down from the mess for us. All of us. We've got a mission briefing as soon as I get back.”

Turning back to the nurse, he was surprised to find her already holding out a datapadd for him.

“You were going to ask for a copy of the doctor's report, right?” she said, offering him a smile. “That's it. He said if you need anything more than that for the colonel to just let him know.”

“Thank you,” he said, genuinely meaning it. Sounded like he wasn't the only one tired of this little dance. A quick bow and he took himself to the colonel's office.

Of course nothing about this was going to be so easy and he wasn't surprised to meet resistence the minute he approached the colonel's office, the yeoman stationed as her gatekeeper immediately trying to intercept him and keep him from disturbing her.

“Sergeant! Sergeant you can't just -!”

“Is she in?”

“What? Well, y-yes, but that's not the poi–.”

Tora wasn't interested in arguments or excuses, stepping around the yeoman and into the colonel's office. She glanced up from her console, her initial surprise quickly replaced with a frown of displeasure.

“Did we have an appointment, sergeant?”

“Have you read this yet?” he growled, slapping the datapadd down on her desk. She frowned at the offending pad, picking it up and flipping through a couple of screens before that frown turned back up to him again.

“If you're worried about dropping a man short, I'm sure we ca–.”

“With respect, ma'am, that's not why I'm here,” he said, interrupting the offer he had already expected. And had no intention of taking. “I'm sure Bates already filed a report claiming it was a training accident and maybe it was, but it still shouldn't've happened. I've got an airman in a walking cast for the next week, at least, because _your_ Marines can't accept that we're in Marine country with them. Because my team consistently ranks in the top three in eval after eval, despite being a bunch of dirty _chinks_. Because our special forces training means nothing to them because we're in Air Force stripes. Because Bates and his cronies think they can keep getting away with it because for the last eight months they _have_ because _someone_ in the chain of command clearly agrees with them!”

“That'll be enough, sergeant!” Colonel Reyes snapped, the fire in her eyes actually rocking him back on his heels for a moment. Which at least gave him the reassurance that the problem was further down the chain of command. “Sit down.”

That was unexpected and he blinked a second before shifting his saya and sitting. Maybe it was meant as a sign that he wasn't about to get his ass reamed for insubordination?

“First things first: is this going to keep you from making your drop?”

“No,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “I was going to have one of _Hekate_ 's people be our contact up here, but now I'd rather have Airman Ichikawa shifted to them instead. It'll keep him feeling useful and if things get tricky, if I think comms have been compromised, I can use cultural shorthand with him I wouldn't be able to use on anyone else.”

“Very well. As for this,” and she paused to pick up the pad again, “are you telling me that if I go into the records I'm going to find more of these medical reports for members of your team?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, a little startled at the question. “And a doctor who's tired of seeing my men coming in with serious injuries from so-called training accidents while we're at station keeping, ma'am.”

“I see....” The colonel frowned hard at the pad in her hand a moment longer, then set it down. The look he saw in her eyes then was almost scary. Had she not been getting any reports at all about what was happening to his team? Was that even possible? It was certainly beginning to look like it... 

“I will take care of this, sergeant. You worry about getting your team ready to drop tomorrow and handling our little rescue scenario. Dismissed.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.”

A crisp salute and he took himself out of her office. If he remembered correctly, they were due for a rotation in the Ruthie's escorts. Tora didn't expect anything to change in the next twenty hours, but perhaps by the time they were finished with this upcoming op some of the worst offenders might be reassigned. Or court marshaled. 

Ok, that wasn't likely, but one could always dream, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes I named one of the largest UN ships after the notorious RGB, because the Ruthie's class of multi-mission capital ships are named for champions of civil rights ... which makes some of the other commentary in this chapter a bit ... ironic? Anyway, if you saw that coming after last chapter, give yourself a cookie.


	3. Chapter 3

_After the darkness of their basement cell, the whiteness of the room into which Uruha had been thrust was painful to his eyes. He didn't get a chance to really squint at it before he was jerked forward and assaulted with a stream of tepid water. It felt like some sort of pressure washer, blasting the dirt from his skin and leaving him raw. Another sharp jerk and he was tugged under a gust of hot air. Yet another jerk and he was shoved into another white room and almost immediately set upon by a host of willowy pale grey aliens. Nathi, his sluggish brain suggested, and that startled him. That Nathi, a supposedly ancient and advanced race, could be involved in something like this...._

_“P-please,” he croaked, his voice shaky from disuse. “Please... help me....”_

_The Nathi stopped in their poking and prodding, wide, unblinking black eyes gazing down on him with blank expressions. But only for a moment and then they went right back to whatever it was they were doing to him. A fifth came in a moment later, some sort of garment draped over one long arm. It cooed at him as it helped him dress and Uruha had to admit he felt better for having clean clothes again._

_Just as he was getting something like used to the flurry of activity around him, all motion abruptly stopped. And then the fifth one, the tallest of the lot, silently pulled him into all four arms. Two hands rested on his shoulders while two more cradled his face, then it leaned down with closed eyes until their foreheads touched._

__Stay strong, little human _, a voice whispered through his suddenly quiet mind._ It must be you, you must be the one. Stay strong, little human. Stay strong, stay kind, stay calm. It is all we can do for now, it is on you now to be the one. Let them do what they will so long as you do not let them break you.

_The other four crowded around him, four more quiet whispers in his thoughts that he had to be the one. He didn't understand, too startled by the revelation that the Nathi were a telepathic species to be able to think of any sort of response before he was herded into the next room._

~*~*~

Uruha was caught in a gummy in between, not wanting to stay in that dream and relive the horror of the auction, but not wanting to wake and have to face whatever fresh horror awaited him now. He still didn't know what the Nathi had meant with their words to him that day, though he had still done his best to stay strong for them. Well, not just for them. Guilt twisted in his gut as the face of a boy whose name he had never learned briefly swam behind his closed lids. Stay strong, they had said, but what was that supposed to mean when he couldn't even protect a single lost child?

Someone was shaking his shoulder, urgently whispering something he couldn't quite catch. And probably wouldn't have been able to understand anyway. Huffing, he pushed himself up to a seated position. The first thing he noticed was the lack of any bindings, not even the collar that had nearly choked him. The second thing he noticed was he, or rather, they were _not_ in the slave quarters where he had spent his nights before his escape. Carpet on the floor and he was sitting on a real bed, a frightened woman darting glances between him and the door that was even at that moment opening to admit their tormentor. There was something unsettling about the look on Raikos' face, more so than usual.

“About time you woke up, useless beast,” the computer's voice offered as translation for the snarled words coming from his so called owner. “I still say this room is too good for the likes of you, but a breeder contact insists I'll get better results this way. You better prove him right.”

“You can't do this,” he muttered, though he wasn't sure why he bothered. “We aren't machines, you can't just order her to be fertile and get pregnant.”

“No, that's what _you're_ for,” Raikos agreed, and something in his voice made Uruha's skin crawl. Expectation. That's what it was, what he was seeing on the Anadolian that was making the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. The Precept was expecting them to get at it immediately, while he watched. He glanced back at the woman, but she looked completely lost and more than a little afraid. Meaning she didn't speak Japanese. And since the computer was only offering one translation for Raikos' words, he could only assume that meant the system didn't have her native language either.

“If you wanted to watch, you should've started with someone who could actually understand me,” Uruha muttered before turning his back on the hulking Anadolian. He was probably pushing his luck, but considering Raikos still wanted to use him as a stud animal, well, maybe it was worth it.

Facing the woman, he smiled and held his hand out to her, palm up. He wasn't sure it would do much good when she was clearly terrified and they didn't have a language in common, but he tried to at least appear reassuring. She moved closer, but her eyes kept darting to Raikos. He shifted to try to block her view of their captor and she immediately moved away. This wasn't going to work; she recognized him as being moderately safer than their captor, but she didn't know him and didn't trust that their captor wouldn't do something horrible if she let her guard down for even a second while he was in the room. Stifling a sigh, Uruha stood from the bed and turned to scowl at Raikos.

“This isn't going to work, she's too scared of you and I don't speak her language.”

“Do I look like an idiot to you? She's Terran, you're Terran, how hard can it be?”

“There are over four _thousand_ distinct languages spoken by Terrans!” Uruha countered, making no effort to hide his exasperation with the alien in front of him. “I'm fluent in exactly one and know a tiny fraction of another. We didn't have this problem at the conference, why doesn't your computer know more languages?” It was something he had been wondering for months now, he just hadn't had the guts to ask. 

“That's not your concern,” the Anadolian growled and Uruha couldn't help but take a step back. He could push, but only so far. On the other hand, he might just be able to use the bastard's ignorance against him, buy them both some more time. For what, exactly, he wasn't sure, but....

“Look, the five most commonly spoken languages are Mandarin Chinese, Urdu Hindi, English, Spanish, and Arabic,” he said, glancing back at the scared woman half hiding behind him. Matted blond hair, terrified blue eyes, pale skin with pink undertones ... it was a snap judgement, and probably racist of him, but if she spoke any of those five, it would probably be English. Not that he wasn't going to tell Raikos that, just like he wasn't going to tell him there was a good chance she didn't speak any of them. “You can either start acquiring translation packs or you can give me a couple weeks to try to build a rapport without a common language, it's up to you.”

“Weeks?! What sort of nonsense is this?!”

“Even in a completely healthy woman, stress and fear have a negative impact on fertility. I can't get her pregnant like this,” Uruha said, silently praying Raikos' ignorance would let him get away with such flagrant lies. Or, well, blatant exaggerations, at any rate. “Human fertility is fragile and tricky, a lot of factors have to be exactly right or the pregnancy won't stick, so to speak. That _is_ what you want, right?”

Raikos scowled and, muttering something the computer chose not to translate, stormed out of the room. Well, it was a start. Turning back around, Uruha sat on the edge of the bed and once more held his hand out to his fellow prisoner.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said gently, though he knew she couldn't understand him. “And I won't let _him_ hurt you anymore, either.” 

Now he was just being reckless, making such a foolish promise, though considering she still couldn't understand what he was saying, maybe it didn't matter. She was still giving both him and the door wary glances, probably scared that Raikos would be back any moment. Swallowing down the urge to sigh, Uruha slowly got up and started exploring the small room, careful not to make any sudden or potentially threatening moves. The poor woman looked terrible, surely there had to be some basic provisions, perhaps that would help them form a basis of communication? He didn't actually know anything about linguistics, but it seemed sensible to him at least. 

The bed was fairly unremarkable, a simple platform bed with bland tan bedding, big enough for two people to share without feeling crushed for space. It was bracketed by two small night stands with muted light sconces above them, but the drawers were empty. The picture window on the flanking wall opposite the door looked out onto the rear of Raikos' estate, the smartglass already tinting to counter the glare from the afternoon sun. Other than that, the room was practically empty, the shallow closet bare of anything but a set of empty narrow shelves at one end. Sighing and shaking his head, Uruha stepped into the attached bathroom next. It at least was done in shades of cream and blue, offering a toilet, bidet, shower, and surprisingly generous tub. He would have to take advantage of that later, a thought he repeated when he uncovered a cache of bath additives as well as a brush and comb. This apartment was oddly and poorly stocked, it rankled that he was going to have to make a list of things they would need to request from Raikos if they were to stay here for however long it took to get what the ass wanted, but they couldn't exist like this.

Uruha was surprised to step out of the bathroom and find his fellow prisoner trying to hide in the closet. What did she think that was going to accomplish?

“I realize you can't understand what I'm saying, but please come out of there and let me help you?” he asked, holding up the brush so she could see it before sitting down on the end of the bed once more. He was probably trying for too much at once, he needed to start smaller if he was going to have any hope of establishing any sort of rapport. Setting the brush aside, he started with placing his hand on his chest.

“Kouyou,” he said, reverting to his childhood name, thinking it might be easier. “I'm Kouyou. My name is Kouyou.”

She stared at him a bit blankly a moment, then risked a step closer.

“Kouyou,” he repeated, tapping his chest and smiling. 

“Ko... yo...,” she repeated and Uruha bit back a groan at what sounded like a Russian accent to him. Raikos was going to be livid if it turned out that she couldn't understand a word of any of the five languages Uruha had named.

“Kouyou,” he said again, determined not to worry about Raikos until later. “I'm Kouyou. What's your name?”

Another confused frown, but then he had been expecting that.

“My name is Kouyou,” he said as he gestured towards himself again. “Your name is?” and this time he pointed at her, hoping the similar structure of the two sentences might tip her off. She was frowning at him but managed another step closer.

“Ko ... yo...,” she said again, this time pointing at him. “Kohyo. Elsa.”

“Elsa. Your name is ... Elsa?” he asked, hoping he was right. It didn't sound like a very Russian name, maybe he was wrong about the accent. She nodded, tapping her chest and repeating her name a couple times. Smiling a little - at least they were making progress - he turned and offered her the hairbrush, which she accepted with a small smile. He had his doubts that she'd have much success, but after who only knew how many indignities, well, the least he could do was to offer back a little of her autonomy, as fleeting as it might prove to be.

Indeed, Elsa hadn't made any appreciable progress at all when Raikos came marching back into the room not unlike a disgruntled ox. That couldn't possibly be a good sign.

“Well?” the alien demanded with a cranky glower.

“Well what?” he asked, though he had a sinking feeling he already knew what the pervert was trying to get him to do.

“You can't actually be this stupid,” Raikos muttered. Resisting the urge to make a snarky comment of his own, Uruha instead turned his back on the aggravating alien. It wouldn't do anyone any good if he pushed their captor too far and the alien decided to get violent about what he wanted.

“Computer, please ask her in each of the new languages if she understands that language,” he said simply, hoping he wasn't about to embarrass himself by trying to do something the computer wasn't programed to accept. But instead of protesting, the computer started speaking. Uruha watched Elsa's expression, but other than a brief faint glimmer, there was nothing to indicate she understood what the computer was saying to her. One of them might have been close, but not close enough. He didn't even know which one was the one that might have been close, other than it hadn't been English, meaning he still had no real clues to make a better guess next time.

“Well?!”

“Well, she doesn't know those languages.”

Uruha yelped as he was suddenly jerked from the bed by a heavy-handed grip on his hair and thrown across the room like a pillow. His back was screaming in pain where it had connected far too hard with the closet door and he made no effort to stop himself from crumpling to the floor. Not quite the reaction he had been expecting, though in hindsight maybe he should have.

“You're lying, you hateful beast!”

“I'm not lying,” he grounded out between teeth gritted against the pain of his body. “Over four thousand languages, remember? If you don't want to get them all, I can keep guessing, but that's all they are, guesses.”

Raikos muttered something the computer once again opted not to translate, then stormed out of the room. That couldn't be anything but trouble and Uruha found himself holding his breath, half expecting the bastard to come stomping back in at any moment. His lungs demanded a breath with still no sign of him, so he finally let himself relax. Apparently Elsa had been similarly afraid because only then did she come to him, kneeling beside him and gently checking him for serious injury.

“I'm okay,” he mumbled, though he knew it was useless. “It's all right, Elsa-san, I'm okay.”

She frowned at him for a long moment, then sighed and went back to fighting with her hair. Wincing, Uruha pushed himself up from the floor and hobbled back over to the bed as well, sitting on the foot and trying to take stock of his own injuries. He'd felt worse after a day of skiing, but it still wasn't pleasant.

“Computer, what is my access level?”

“Unit is not authorized for that information.”

Well, that pretty much answered that question. He glanced around the room, but there was still no desk, so still no console he could use to even just write down a list. This was ridiculous, how were they expected to do anything like this? Ignoring the lingering twinges in his back, Uruha paced the room again, stopping at the wall console and poking it experimentally. To his surprise, the black panel lit up immediately, covered in angry red alien characters. 

“Computer, translation please,” he requested, half expecting it to refuse. Instead the screen went dark a moment, then came back to life, this time in comforting kanji, though most of them were still red. Reading them, he suspected that was because they were indicating functions that he, as a piece of property, didn't have the right to access. Some of them were understandable - it would be foolish to give a slave who had already run once any sort of access to security layouts - but he couldn't understand why even entertainment channels were blocked. 

“Computer, is there some sort of note-taking app I can use?”

The screen went black a moment, then settled in a somewhat familiar layout of mostly empty space with what looked like a touch-sensitive keyboard at the bottom, a flashing cursor waiting for input. Another beat and there was a faint pop, the wall console suddenly detaching and Uruha lunged to catch it before it could hit the floor. _Well, that's convenient_ , he thought to himself, moving back to sit on the foot of the bed. He wasn't sure there was much use in making lists of the sorts of supplies they needed if they were to stay in this room and only this room, but at least it gave him something to do while he waited to see what Raikos would do next.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably be able to wrap this up in the 6th chapter, but since Ao3 likes to turn the chapter number back to ?? when I add chapters, I'm going to let it go until I'm done. :p

Dusk lay heavy over the land when Raikos finally returned, and this time he wasn't alone, another hulking brute carrying some unconscious human over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Uruha watched warily as this new poor soul was dumped on the bed, but when Raikos' companion turned to grab at Elsa, the woman squeaked and bolted behind Uruha. 

“What are you doing??” he asked. It was probably an impertinent question and he half expected to get hit for it, but he had told Elsa he would protect her, never mind that she hadn't understood a word of it.

“You'll start with this one instead,” Raikos grumbled, gesturing to the body on the bed. “She looks like you, so no language problem.”

Uruha wasn't about to argue the fallacy of that logic. Especially when he had better things to argue.

“Well let her stay anyway. It'll help me build a rapport with her and maybe with two of us we'll have better luck communicating?” he suggested, careful to phrase things as if they were merely suggestions. “Human females bond with other females far more readily than they do with males. Can't hurt anything, right?”

Raikos scowled at him for a moment, then seemingly grudgingly called back his associate, muttering about how this had better work. Uruha wasn't completely confident in his own arguments, but it was a chance he was willing to take.

“What's this?” Raikos demanded, snatching the detached console from Uruha's hands.

“We ... we need ... supplies,” he stammered, playing up his fear a bit. “I thought, if I could organize my thoughts....”

Raikos frowned at the list, his frown turning into a scowl as he realized it was longer than just what was on the screen. 

“Computer, give this unit access to all shopping channels, cart only,” the Precept growled, tossing the console onto the floor in what was either a fit of pique or a calculated insult. Or both. “Find the things you need, but no more than five thousand credits total. And if I disagree with an item, I won't buy it.”

“How generous,” he muttered under his breath, surprised when the computer didn't offer a translation for his words. Fine with him, he wasn't sure the sarcasm would have translated ... or been well received if it had. Another scowl and then Raikos and his silent subordinate were leaving the room. Once again, Uruha could feel himself holding his breath, so he forced himself to exhale. Maybe this time Raikos really did mean to leave them alone for awhile. All night would be a start.

Speaking of night.... Uruha sighed and frowned at their bed. When he had been impulsively asking for Elsa to stay, he hadn't been thinking any further than sparing her whatever sadistic torment their captor might inflict on her for “failing” him as a breeder. But the bed that had been large enough to be comfortable with two was going to be much less so now that there were three of them. 

“Think he's gone for the night?”

Uruha startled as the previously prone body on the bed suddenly stirred to life. A moment and their newest roommate rearranged herself to sit up against the headboard, slowly rubbing one temple.

“Raikos? Who knows, maybe,” he said, shrugging as he studied the other. Perfectly straight long black hair - that was in dramatically better condition than Elsa's own - almost completely obscured her face and Uruha wondered if that wasn't more intentional than accidental. He watched as she scrubbed her face with one hand, then tucked her hair back over her shoulder to reveal a finely sculpted face that didn't read quite right. A tiny frown as he leaned a little closer. Androgynous features, slender build, a soft, melodic voice that could easily fit either gender...

“What are you supposed to start with me? I'm Yuuki, by the way.”

“I'm Uruha... well, Kouyou, and her name is Elsa, but that's about all I know, since she doesn't speak Japanese or anything else the computer knows. And Raikos has apparently decided to start breeding his human slaves like livestock.”

Intense brown eyes flicked up to Uruha's face, incredulity fading into something not unlike horror. And then Yuuki burst into laughter, shaking so hard she slid off the side of the bed. Great, she'd had some sort of psychotic break. What else was going to go wrong today? Huffing, he watched as Elsa carefully edged around to Yuuki's side of the bed and Uruha wondered just what she was thinking of all this. Before he could stop her, Elsa lashed out and started kicking Yuuki, screaming something probably incredibly crude at him in her own language. And yet it seemed to have the - or at least _a_ \- desired effect, Yuuki springing to her feet in a flash and spitting back something that sounded just as crude, grabbing a fistful of Elsa's hair and shaking her. Elsa's eyes went wide, gaping down at the smaller woman, while Uruha sat paralyzed on the foot of the bed, watching the two.

“What.... what did you say to her?” he stammered. Elsa and Yuuki continued their silent stand-off a moment longer and then Yuuki let go of her, bowing slightly before turning and sauntering over to Uruha and planting herself on his lap without so much as a beat of hesitation. Even more surprising, she leaned in to nuzzle against his neck, a soft sigh brushing against his skin as she settled herself in his lap. A moment and Uruha tucked his arms around her narrow hips, though he was once again questioning Yuuki's mental stability. And then her lips and breath were washing against his ear with each word as she spoke.

“Just roll with it, I don't want the computer hearing. It might use it to try to learn her language. And to tell Raikos my secret. She thought I was mocking our situation. I told her I laughed because I'm not a woman.”

Yuuki followed up his words with a bite to his neck that was more than enough justification for the shock that had no doubt written itself across Uruha's face. At this point it wasn't even a surprise to hear that Raikos could be stupid enough not to know the difference between male and female humans, but it did add a whole other layer of hopeless ridiculousness to the situation.

“I ... I don't understand....”

“Sensors are imbedded in the walls, recording everything, but the computers ignore anything below a certain threshold, unless they've been programmed for military sensitivity. This Raikos definitely isn't savvy enough to have dialed up the sensitivity on his own, just... be careful.”

“And Elsa...,” he started, not sure how to ask what he wanted to know without giving it away in case Raikos really was monitoring them continuously or even just reviewing logs periodically. Yuuki's lips twitched against his neck.

“Her accent's not nearly as bad as mine, but we both know enough Pashto to bitch each other out, it should be enough,” Yuuki explained, nuzzling into his shoulder. “Dump me out of your lap and go take a shower so us 'ladies' can bond, then we'll do some shopping for a bigger bed. And some more furniture. And some fucking food and a prep unit if nothing else's materialized by then.”

Bearing in mind the role Yuuki had assigned him, Uruha made a show of rolling his eyes and pushing the man off his lap as he stood up.

“I need a shower. Try to play nice, okay?”

Yuuki pouted up at him from the floor, crossing arms over his chest, but didn't argue or otherwise move. Uruha had no idea how they were going to keep this disaster from ending horribly for all of them, didn't expect the shower to offer him any great insights, but at least it would be a chance to be clean again.

~*~*~

Yuuki watched the slight sway to Uruha's hips and smiled to himself. At least if he was going to have to carry on the charade of being a woman he had a gorgeous man with which to do it. He was more than a little tempted to follow him into the shower and get to know that body a bit better, but that wasn't the plan. Instead he took a moment to push himself back up to his feet, rubbing his ass for the sake of the recording he was pretty sure their owner was making of them, then turned on the poor bedraggled woman stuck in this same mess as them. And with even less reassurance than Yuuki and Uruha could at least find in each other, if Yuuki was lucky.

“ _You know, you look like shit. How long have you been here?_ ”

“ _I'm not sure. A week, maybe? He only moved us into this room today_.”

“ _That looks worse than a week of neglect_ ,” he said, gesturing to her hair. “ _Want me to try to help?_ ”

“ _I think it may just need to be cut off, but_....” Elsa trailed off with a helpless shrug, offering him the brush. Even with what he had said to Uruha, the truth was he was practically fluent in Pashto, among others, and from the sounds of it, so was Elsa. Which would at least make it easy for them to communicate, but it also meant the computer would have a better chance of eventually learning the language itself. Not that there was much use in hiding it, but anything that could give them an advantage over their owner was something to be jealously guarded for their own protection. Taking the brush, he sat down behind her and started working on the ends.

“ _Is it going to bother you?_ ” he asked after a few moments of untangling.

“ _Is what going to bother me?_ ”

“ _If I seduce him. Let him seduce me. Not just for show, but actually have sex_.”

“ _Why should I care what a whore like you does?_ ” she muttered. He yanked the brush a little harder than necessary against the next knot and she yelped, pulling away and turning to glower at him. He glowered right back at her, in no mood to be disrespected so casually. He didn't deny what he had been before getting himself sold to Precept Raikos, but the way she had said it, the words she had chosen to use....

“ _You think your words mean anything to me? At least I don't look like some street thief gutter whore like you_!” he snapped back at her. “ _He stuck his neck out for you, the least you could do is not be such a bitch_.”

“ _Who, Kohyo? What are you even talking about??_ ”

“ _He talked Raikos into letting you stay with us_ ,” Yuuki explained. “ _Convinced him you and I would bond better, since we're both supposed to be women. You want to take pot shots at me being a prostitute, fine, but at least then I was getting paid. We're_ both _nothing but brood mares now_.”

The horrified look that crossed the woman's face would have been hard to miss even if they hadn't been standing so close together. He watched her drop heavily onto the bed, her face falling into her hands. He waited a little more, watching her shoulders shake with almost silent sobs. Uncertain if it was the right move, Yuuki eased himself closer and started working on her hair again. She was probably right about it being a lost cause, but since he didn't know when they might be allowed anything that could be used to trim out the knots.... At least she didn't flinch away from him and he started humming softly as he worked. Not quite what he'd had in mind for their time alone together, but it seemed to be working, so he let it continue.

When Yuuki heard the water turn off, he set the brush down on the bed, frowning at how little he had accomplished.

“ _I think you were right about it being a lost cause_ ,” he said with a soft sigh. “ _What kind of clothes do you want? Would you like a chair, maybe? Or a desk? We don't have much space to work with, but Raikos is letting us buy up to five thousand credits in supplies. I was thinking a bigger bed would be a good place to start, placate him by all of us sleeping together_.”

“ _Oh, um, modest, loose clothes, cool colors. I don't know, does it really matter? We're just slaves...._ ”

“ _If he's going to let us buy the things we want, or at least pick them out so he can buy them, then they might as well be things we like_ ,” he replied with a pragmatic shrug. “ _Where were you living before Ceti?_ ”

She didn't say anything and Yuuki had to restrain himself from making a snarky comment and ruining what little progress they had so far been able to make. And then Uruha stepped out of the attached bath and he could see Elsa pull even further into herself. Unable to completely stop himself, he sighed and got up from the bed, pausing to pick up the datapadd before resettling himself on the floor by the window. Maybe she just needed some time to herself? They couldn't give her much of that, but at least Uruha - or maybe he should call him Kouyou? Which did he prefer anyway? - was following his lead, sitting next to him and leaning back against the cool plassteel of the window behind them.

“Well, no one's missing an eye, that's something, right?” the blond said with a cheerful smile. The way it lit up his whole face, Yuuki almost felt bad for having to crush that hopefulness already.

“Not so much,” he confessed with a sigh, glancing over Uruha's notes before erasing one and then switching over to a shopping channel. “She didn't really want to talk to me, so I didn't learn much. I can't place her accent and she didn't want to talk about where she came from before Ceti. I don't know what happened to her before our dear Precept got her, but it can't have been good.”

“We're slaves, of course it wasn't good. And what did you delete from my notes?”

“Something useless that you never should have written down in the first place,” Yuuki muttered, going straight to the bedding section. “I don't know where you got the idea of trying something like that, but it's not possible. We'd need comm access and like hell we're ever going to get _that_ out of him.”

“Oh that. The Americans know Raikos has me. Illegally, by the way. They promised they wouldn't just leave me here with him.”

Yuuki stopped browsing, blinking up at the blond next to him. That ... that sounded dangerously like hope.

“Run that by me again? Slowly and carefully?”

“I ran away from Raikos last week, only before I could get off world, some locals arrested me and contacted the Ruthie. I ... I talked with one of their JAG officers for awhile, he was trying to get me released, then after he left to go back to the ship, Raikos swept in, drugged me, and brought me back here. But Commander Ryan promised they weren't going to just leave me here. Raikos knows they know about him buying me, he has to, he just doesn't care. He thinks he can just keep me because he paid someone a lot of credits for me, but he's wrong.”

Yuuki sat back and just stared at Uruha for a long moment, trying to decide if the man was crazy or just naive. 

“Look, it's not like I'm expecting a platoon of Marines to come busting in here at any moment. Diplomacy takes time, I'll do what I have to do to keep myself alive as long as it takes, I just ... hate the thought of just sitting here passively like some damsel in distress waiting for her prince.”

“... you're a slave now, and I'm pretty sure that door is alarmed, so I'd get used to the idea of just waiting,” Yuuki huffed, shaking off the whole matter. If it happened, it happened, but he wasn't going to hold his breath. “Come on, we're supposed to be shopping, remember?”

“I know, I just -.”

“Look,” Yuuki interrupted, jabbing him in the chest with the datapadd, “you said it yourself, this could take months, or worse, years. Stop thinking about it. Help me pick out some things. Or I'll have to find some other way of getting your mind focused where it needs to be.”

He could almost see the gears turning in the other man's head. Just to make things a bit more clear, he firmly slid a palm up the inside of one of the blond's thighs. And tried not to laugh at the startled look that appeared on the other man's face.

“Y-yuuki....”

“Can't get me pregnant if we don't have sex, right?” Yuuki murmured, smirking up at the other man. 

“But I –,” Uruha started and Yuuki shifted his hand, pressing a finger to the man's lips before he could say something dangerous. Inviting lips that would feel like heaven on his skin ... and look like sin on his cock. For a moment Yuuki was seriously tempted to ignore the shopping in favor of crawling into Uruha's lap and seeing just what it would take to get the man to fuck him senseless. But the look on his face made him hesitate. They had more pressing needs than satisfying his sexual desires. 

“Is there any point in my asking when we're going to be given food?” he asked, shifting to lean back against the window again, hands and datapadd both landing in his lap.

“I don't know,” Uruha admitted, gaze shifting to the door. “Before I ran, he housed us in a sort of oversized shack at night, dinner rations were delivered when we were locked in at dusk, then breakfast just before dawn and lunch depended on if you were working a labor detail or not. I was never allowed past the kitchen before, I don't know what he did with any ... _pets_ he might have been keeping in the house.”

No help there, but Yuuki wasn't really surprised. Sighing, he picked up the pad again; shopping wouldn't fill his empty stomach, but maybe it would distract him long enough to stop thinking about it.

~*~*~

The truth was, he hadn't intended for any of it. Yuuki was pretty, certainly, gorgeous even, and in the end Uruha had known all along that they were going to have to at least fake having sex for the sake of keeping Raikos placated. Still, he'd had a plan, intending to take things slowly and if Raikos complained, well, so far it had been easy enough to feed the bastard enough half truths to keep him from doing something ugly. Besides, they had been shopping for things to help them keep their sanity, it should have been simple enough to stick to that. He had no idea how they had gone from trying to figure out how to let Raikos know they had put things in the cart and the breathless kissing he couldn't seem to stop. Yuuki's hand pushed into loose pants and he groaned at the feeling of those fingers sliding along his length. 

“Yuuki....”

“Shh, don't think, just feel,” the other man murmured against his lips, slowly stroking him to hardness. Uruha slid his own hands down the back of Yuuki's pants, cupping warm flesh and pulling him closer. He couldn't remember the last time acting so reckless had felt so good, which probably said something just a bit depressing about the state his personal life had been in even before being kidnapped. 

Uruha was aching for release down to his toes when the door burst open and four burly Anadolians stomped into the room, two going straight for the bed to dismantle it while the other two each picked up a night stand and carried them out of the room. He and Yuuki had already jumped apart like guilty teenagers, but the minute he had his feet under him again, Elsa was cowering behind him, one hand curled into his shirt.

“What ... what do you think they're doing?” he asked, frowning as the four aliens proceeded to remove the only piece of furniture they'd had with only a few grumbles between them that the computer apparently saw no need to translate. The three humans waited with baited breath to see what came next, Uruha feeling more than a little surprised when they returned with the bed he and Yuuki had picked; he hadn't really expected Raikos to act so promptly, the bastard really wanted him to get Elsa and Yuuki pregnant as quickly as possible. They were going to be in serious trouble when the blowhard found out Yuuki couldn't actually get pregnant.

Nor were they done there, the crew of disgruntled workmen hauling in and setting up not only the bed and night stand, but also a recliner, a small sofa, a low coffee table, a set of floor pillows, a pair of tall dressers, and a half height book case. Then the boxes started coming, to the point where, whatever was in them, this shopping trip had clearly gone well beyond what he and Yuuki had selected, well past the budget they had been given by their arrogant owner. 

And then the workmen brought in a last surprise: a food prep unit with both a small replicator and a set of cooking elements. Uruha could only stand there gaping at it, watching as the unit was installed with a growing sense of unease. They'd checked, that unit alone would have been enough to completely blow their budget by a couple orders of magnitude. Not that he wasn't grateful - with that, they could order and prepare meals whenever they wanted instead of having to wait for someone else to bring them things - but he was more than a little wary of just what Raikos was expecting in return for such obvious generosity. Yet he didn't even bother to put in an appearance, the workmen disappearing with the sound of the door locking behind them. 

“Well, as long as we're doomed anyway, at least we won't starve,” Yuuki declared, a wide grin on his face. “I don't know about you, but I'm starved, I just hope it's programmed for more than Anadolian food. I can't eat that stuff raw and I really don't want to have to wait for something to cook.”

“Maybe you and Elsa can figure out dinner while I start opening these boxes?” Uruha suggested, gently coaxing the woman out from behind him. The way she reacted any time an Anadolian came into the room, he was starting to get a picture of what had happened to her before Raikos had brought her here and it wasn't pretty. Whatever her problem was with Yuuki, at least they had a common language, maybe it would help ease her fears.

After the installation of the food unit, the boxes were almost anticlimactic. Clothes, bedding and towels, cookware and utensils, enough toiletries to stun a small ox, even a small bundle of the incense and tea light candles Uruha had tacked onto the end of the list as a long shot. Making a mental note to ask for - or maybe just outright order - a wall-mounted shelf, he left the kitchen boxes with Yuuki and Elsa, then started dividing the clothes so the other two could handle their clothes their way. The style of clothes he had chosen for himself (well, that he had chosen from what Yuuki had picked for him) would manage well enough all folded, he was fine claiming one of the dressers for himself and letting the other two argue over closet versus drawer space between themselves.

“Ok, you, take a break,” Yuuki said suddenly, shoving a plate at his stomach. “Raikos may be a few short of a combo platter, but he at least had the brains to order a unit programmed with various Earth cuisines. Including Japanese.”

“It looks like more work than it is,” he said, indicating the boxes even as he accepted the plate. Uruha almost cried at the familiar sight of tempura battered vegetables, skewers of grilled squid, sunomono, and a little cup of chawanmushi. Setting his plate on the coffee table, he dug out the floor pillows, though he wasn't surprised when Elsa opted for the couch instead.

“He really got everything and then some, didn't he?” Yuuki said, sitting down beside him at the low table. 

“I'm ... concerned what this is going to cost us ... but I think he accepts that it's going to take more than a few hours to get what he ultimately wants.”

“Here's to hoping he doesn't make us pay for it in blood. Or worse,” Yuuki said, passing him a cup of tea before raising his own in salute. Funny how soothing something as simple as a cup of tea could be. It didn't fix anything, didn't make anything about their situation less horrifying, but at least for a moment he didn't feel so disconnected from his old life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise triad that's all the kinky deliciousness in this chapter. A little annoyed with myself that it takes almost the whole chapter before I mention anything about Yukihiro that could potentially give which look, but yes, in my head, he's always had that awesome long hair because this Tora _so_ has a hair fetish. But correcting that would take a lot more time than I've got, so... sorry m(_ _)m

Hiro slithered his way back down the tree he had been using as his most recent observational perch, wiping his hands on his pants as he legged it back over to the makeshift camp that had been home for himself and the rest of the team for the last week. The reason for it was disturbing enough, but it felt good to be planetside for a change, breathing proper air instead of the canned and recycled stuff aboard ship. And getting honestly dirty again was, in his opinion, doing wonders for all of them. Even if Ichiro clearly didn't agree.

“So help me, Hiro-kun, if you tell me you need so much as another _day_ observing that place, I'm going to shave your head in your sleep,” Ichiro groused, glaring up at him as he crouched down next to their fire pit.

“You shouldn't make threats like that, what if the boss takes you seriously~?” he teased. “You know how much he ... _appreciates_ my hair.”

“He's not the only one,” Yukihiro said with a chuckle, joining them beside the unlit fire. Another benefit to their being planetside for awhile; while their triad was legally registered, it was still something kept private when they were aboard ship and anywhere but their quarters. Too many people felt they had the right, in some cases even the _duty_ , to say and do some pretty disgusting things because three men dared to make it a matter of public record that they not only loved each other, but felt that love was worth celebrating. Tora had always been very careful with the selection of his team, even back when he had been in denial of his feelings; Satoshi and Ichiro (and even Reita, now), were more like family than coworkers these days, hiding from them didn't feel necessary. The rest of the Ruthie's crew, however....

“Yeah, about that,” Ichiro said suddenly and Hiro had to bite back a laugh at the way the other man's nose wrinkling gave away what he was about to say. “I get that we're camped out in the middle of wild country, but you _might_ want to think about being a little, you know, _quieter_? We're gonna look pretty fucking incompetent if this op gets blown because you guys can't keep it down while you're having sex.”

“It's a game preserve in the off season, Ichiro-kun, no one's around. Why do you think the boss picked this area for our drop?” Yukihiro countered, an unrepentant grin on his face even as he scooted himself that tiny bit closer to Hiro, tucking an arm around his waist. Humming a noise of agreement, he couldn't resist leaning over to rest his head on Yukihiro's shoulder. His guess was they wouldn't be facing the same problem again tonight - after a whole day spent up one tree or another, all Hiro really wanted was some massaging for his back and shoulders, a warm meal, and a warm bed roll. And not necessarily in that order. 

“Is he whining about being planetside without Toshi-kun again?” Reita teased as he came across their encampment to join them. “You'd think it was the worst thing to ever happen to him.”

“You make it sound like I'm the only one who's ever complained about anything ever,” Ichiro grumbled, getting up to poke at the fire pit. They weren't to light it until they got word from Tora that they were clear to do so, though Hiro could tell Ichiro was getting antsy to do just that. Their clearing was pretty isolated, and while deeper into the jungle the understory thinned out enough to be trouble, the open margins got pretty dense. Dense enough that no one was going to see their fire without first tripping their perimeter alarms, but there were still protocols to maintain. On the other hand, it also meant darkness had a habit of closing in fast, especially on moonless nights.

_“All right, you can light it up,”_ Tora's voice said from the comm system and Hiro tried not to be obvious in his relief when warm firelight sprang up in the pit a moment later to push back the darkness. With the fire alight, Ichiro and Reita started dinner prep while Yukihiro pulled back and pressed a kiss to Hiro's forehead.

“I swear, you have the worst back I've ever seen in an active duty special forces operative,” his lover teased as he forced him to turn around, strong hands going right to his aching shoulders with the surety of someone with long familiarity with where his knots tended to gather. “How the hell do you even pass your physicals??”

“Why do you think I always insist on a good roll in the sack the night before~?” he shot back, unable to fully contain his own laughter as he spoke. “Gets me all warmed up and loose for the physical the next day! Plus all those lovely endorphins rushing through my system, powering up those nanites they gave me in basic.”

“You mean the ones that can figure out how to repair a deep bleeding gash to your thigh but not how to repair muscle strain in your neck?”

“Yeah, well, there's a reason they aren't in general use yet. And hey, stop complaining, if the nanites figured out how to fix my back, we'd have to think of another excuse for you to get my shirt off and rub me all over!” he countered, careful not to dislodge the older man's hands as he pulled the long pin from his hair, letting it fall down his back in a raven cascade for a moment before pulling it over his shoulder.

“Speaking of, you really should take that off,” Yukihiro replied, squeezing his shoulders before pulling his hands back.

“But ... but I'll get _cold_ ,” Hiro complained with a faked whine. Like anyone was going to buy that in the middle of dense tropical jungle.

“Oh don't worry, baby, you know I'll keep you good and warm,” Yukihiro purred, though he purposefully kept his voice loud enough for their teammates to be able to hear every word as well.

“Why am I hearing this?” Reita mock groused, shooting playful glares at the two of them. “I don't need to be hearing this. No one needs to be hearing this! Save that shit for when you're alone in your tent!”

Hiro couldn't help another laugh as he peeled himself out of his utility vest and t-shirt. Yup, this was definitely better than being on the ship. Almost unfortunate that they were going to reach the end of this mission in, at most, another couple of days.

~*~*~

Tora had to smile as he stepped through the familiar tingle of the dampening field around their camp and was immediately assaulted by the smell of cooking meat, grilling vegetables, and wood smoke. They had dropped with the usual provisions, but the forest itself had generously provided for most of their meals. After so many months living spoiled by the luxuries of the Ruthie, the first couple of days had been filled with more than a few grumbled complaints for the rough living, but now Tora's sense was that his team had well and truly settled into the free air and isolated hush of living off the land in secret. As he had known they would. He almost felt bad knowing this couldn't last much longer.

“Well, at least I know _one_ of you had a productive day today,” said as he joined the others at their fire. Strictly speaking, keeping a fire at night wasn't necessary - they recovered the crates of tactical gear within an hour of dropping - but there was something about burning wood that was far more comforting than cold LED bulbs. More effective at keeping predators at bay and less likely to be spotted by others as well. Quite possibly also related to why their harvested meals were more satisfying than the MREs they hadn't touched in days.

“Hey boss, pull up a rock~” Reita said, passing him a full plate. Thanking the young airman, Tora moved to settle beside his elder lover, though not before noticing the way Hiro had fished out a bedroll and arranged himself with his head in Yukihiro's lap. Not normal, perhaps, but not an immediate concern. He let his fingers flicker briefly against the tip of the younger man's nose, then settled in to eat his dinner.

“Have you had enough time to process everybody's reports yet, Yun-chan?” he asked softly, not sure why the diminutive had come out so readily but not ready to question _that_ just yet either.

“Mm, and you're not going to like it,” Yukihiro said, swiping a last section of roasted tuber though meat drippings before popping it in his mouth and passing his empty plate to Reita. Tora grunted a snort but nodded all the same; he had already come to the same conclusion himself.

“Might as well hit me with it,” he said between bites.

“We've counted ten adults, men and women, and two children who can't be older than eight and ten that are kept out in the yards. The men appear to be taking turns assisting with a heavy labor project on the grounds, but other than that and a few ... incidents between workmen and a couple of the women, it's almost like he's keeping a private zoo. They're locked in at night, but security is pretty light, Raikos clearly doesn't expect anyone to come raiding his home. We could probably spring that group tonight, though Astrogation's charts say tomorrow night we'll have an even longer moonless phase.”

“I'm sensing a 'but' coming,” he said, lips twitching at the snort that came from Hiro.

“We've been here eight days, only eyes on Takashima has been Eiko-chan,” Hiro said, a note of annoyance coloring his words. “That prick has three people, Takashima, another man, and a woman, all holed up in the main house, under lock and key, hasn't even let anyone but himself in or out of that room the whole time we've been here. It's third story, we'd need to either storm the building with a whole damn platoon of Marines or call in an air evac with heavy artillery to take out the window and lift them out that way. And I think we all know what would happen if we tried either approach.”

“Like the ambassador said, big noisy mess,” Tora concluded with an annoyed sigh of his own. Their check-in with Satoshi last night had confirmed that Takashima was still listed as having left the planet at the end of his biomedical conference, meaning they had _some_ grounds to act as if they were on a kidnap rescue, but the path of least violence was going to be heavily preferred all the way around.

“Ichiro, have you gotten us into his computer system yet?”

“I've got a program running right now, give it overnight and a prayer for luck and I might be past his security in time for breakfast. If I can disarm the alarms, I can route them out into the yard and we can do this all under cover of darkness,” the specialist said with a slight nod. “We'll know in the morning, but it's our best shot for getting everyone out with the least fuss.”

“As much as I'd like to put a slug in that Raikos' head right now,” Hiro growled, “I'm with Ichiro. His physical security's a joke, take out the computer and he'll be deaf, blind, and mute for hours without even realizing it.”

“All right, we'll go with that, then,” Tora said, finishing his own dinner and passing along his plate. “Keep me informed if anything changes, but don't stay up all night, guys.”

“I think that's our line, boss,” Reita teased, waving him off from their portable kitchen when he tried to do more than get a cup of water. A laugh and he briefly clasped the younger man's shoulder before going back over to the fire and offering Hiro a hand up.

“Come on,” he said softly, jerking his head towards their tent. Hiro hesitated a moment, a hundred thoughts racing across his face in a heartbeat. And then he nodded, turning his head to press a brief kiss to Yukihiro's thigh before softly asking their third to wait awhile before joining them. Yukihiro frowned, but it was worry, not displeasure, that was creasing his forehead and he nodded his understanding.

He should have let go of Hiro's hand once the other man had his feet back under him, but something was stopping him, something that had locked his fingers around those of his younger mate. Probably the same thing that, as soon as the tent flap was closed behind them, had him tugging the man into a hungry, urgent kiss. Suddenly unfrozen fingers burrowed into the luxurious long locks that drove half the American Marines to complete distraction and he stepped in even closer, a silent hum of approval when he felt strong arms fold around him. It was completely ridiculous, this feeling like he hadn't been able to hold Hiro in days when it had only been a dozen hours, and yet...

“You saw it, didn't you?” Tora whispered when their lips finally parted.

“The rapes? Yeah,” Hiro murmured, tilting their foreheads together and closing his eyes. That was it, that was the unsettled thing that had disrupted his lover's usually more tranquil energy. 

“There's a third night with a moonless interval,” Tora murmured, sliding a hand down Hiro's bare skin a moment before shifting to unhook his koshirae from his belt, lifting the sword between them and pressing it against his lover's chest with absolute conviction. “You and me, we'll stay behind and if we can't do it tomorrow, then the night after, we'll make them all pay.”

Hiro didn't even hesitate, his hand joining Tora's on the wooden saya.

“We'll make them pay,” he vowed. “Silent death, no chance for honor.”

A momentary twinge of regret for the mess they were going to be dumping on Ambassador Ahmed's desk, but only a moment. It was nothing less than honor demanded.

~*~*~

Yukihiro watched his two lovers circle the camp and duck into their tent, hands joined the whole time. That was unusual, Tora tended to be so reticent about even the smallest displays of affection in front of the others. Afraid to be seen as showing favoritism or something equally ridiculous, he supposed.

“Everything okay with those two, sir?” Reita asked quietly and Yukihiro actually startled to find a mug of tea being pressed into his hands. 

“I'm not the empath, Suzuki-san, I really couldn't tell you,” he demurred, taking the tea even if it had just been an excuse to get close enough to ask the question. Not that it had taken any particular psychic ability to tell that Hiro's whole energy had been a bit off most of the evening. Or at least not for Yukihiro, who had felt those knots of tension and seen right through the teasing words to the disquiet within his lover had been trying to hide.

“Honestly, senpai, it's just us and the birds out here,” Reita said after a long moment. “Ichiro-kun and I can handle the watches, right, Ichiro-kun?”

Ichiro looked momentarily caught off guard, his head popping up from his console. He blinked a few times, reminding Yukihiro of a startled owl, then shook his head with a faintly disgusted look.

“Yeah, the rookie and I can handle it, just ... mind it with the noise, okay? I really didn't need to hear all about how good the boss is in bed, you know?”

Yukihiro laughed, lingering over his tea for a few more moments before finally letting the other two chase him off to the tent he was sharing with his lovers. He wasn't sure why, exactly, Hiro had wanted him to hang back, to give him a moment alone with their lover, but he respected that need. So he took his time finishing his tea, collected Hiro's forgotten bedroll, even did a few stretches before slowly ambling his way to their tent, bedroll tucked under his arm. A respectful pause at the tent flap ( _a pause, not a hesitation, Yukihiro never hesitated_ ), and then a couple light scratches before he slipped inside. And smiled at how completely beyond noticing the two men were at that moment, how utterly beautiful. 

It wasn't until Yukihiro was kneeling beside them that he noticed something was wrong. Hiro's arms were locked straight, stiff and yet trembling. Other than a handful gripped tight at the base of his neck, his hair hung long around his head. The grip was wrong, too, tight and loose at the same time, allowing for Hiro's chin to be nearly touching his heaving chest. It wasn't pleasure he was seeing, it was pain, and he was suddenly reminded of another time he had walked in on his two lovers. At least this time he had the benefit of experience, unlike that time. Didn't _understand_ it, but he knew what to do this time. 

Glancing up at Tora, he waited for the other man to nod approval, permission, before sliding his own hand into his lover's hair, gripping a section tight and pulling his head up enough to brush his lips to damp, salty skin. Glazed eyes struggled to focus on him as he slowly, steadily, placed soft, loving pecks in a trail from one damp cheek, across the bridge of his nose, to the other. He didn't understand the darker places Hiro's mind sometimes went, or the way Tora was able to meet it, shape it, redirect it before it could do Hiro serious harm. And in a sense it didn't _matter_ if he understood, because _Tora_ understood and it was enough. They shared that darkness between them, his two assassins, and he was their light and it was _enough_.

A whimper and Hiro surged forward, demanding a hungry kiss, begging for more. Yukihiro flowed into the kiss like water, fingers sliding down from sweat-dampened hair to linger against his cheek a moment. Abruptly the kiss was broken as Hiro was pulled up against Tora's chest, and though he could hear the low rumble of words being whispered into Hiro's ear, he couldn't parse them out enough to know what was being said. Still, he knew this dance now, moving away from his two lovers to give them another moment of just the two of them. His invitation had been revoked, so to speak, and he was fine with waiting until they were done to rejoin them. Discreet, almost silent, he grabbed the nearly forgotten bedroll and rolled it out on the opposite side of the enclosure, all the more space he could give them without rousing undue suspicion and worry in their teammates. 

He was just about to slide into the bedroll when a hand pressed itself to the small of his back, warm against his skin. Glancing over his shoulder, he was surprised to see clear brown eyes gazing back at him. 

“You are part of us,” Hiro murmured, sliding his hand up along Yukihiro's spine, leaning close to brush lips to his shoulder. “We are incomplete without you.”

Such romantic nonsense, and yet he couldn't seem to stop himself from melting into the younger man, letting himself be drawn back to the other side of the tent. Tora boxed him in against Hiro's chest, trailing nipping kisses along his shoulder even as Hiro quietly insisted on another slow yet hungry kiss. Not even a full day since the last time the three of them had been intimate and yet one would not have known it for how quickly his two lovers had him naked and panting for more. Warm hands on naked skin, hungry kisses that tried to devour eager moans, and both of them so careful, always so careful, as if they were afraid Yukihiro might break. With anyone else, he might have been offended, but with these two...

“I'm not made of glass,” he said between kisses, not even sure whose hands were where. A breathless laugh ghosted past his shoulder and someone's hand closed firmly around his cock. Tora caught his chin, turning him for another hungry kiss.

“Not made of glass, no,” he agreed with a soft chuckle. “But still precious.”

Yukihiro wasn't very well going to argue with that, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. A moan caught in his throat as fingers pressed into him, forcing him open in a slow burn that was both pain and pleasure. 

“You _said_ not to treat you like glass,” Hiro purred against the back of his neck, nosing aside the long braid of his hair, and a breathless laugh huffed out of him in response. He turned his head back towards Hiro, sliding a hand into long hair to hold him in place as he kissed him. His hips rocked back and forth, arching forward into Tora's grip and then back against the fingers sliding in and out of his ass. Yukihiro tried to keep quiet, but it was hard to stifle his moans with both men focusing their attentions entirely on him. Kisses, nibbles, caresses and playful pinches, until his need for these two men was a hot coil in the pit of his stomach.

“Please,” he breathed without knowing what exactly it was he wanted. A low growl and Hiro was pulling him down to the bedding on top of him, chest to chest, slowly grinding their hips together. Yukihiro started to shift his weight to his knees only to be pushed down hard into Hiro's chest by Tora's hand clamped to the back of his neck. His own breathing stopped a moment and then he felt Tora pushing into him and his breath left him in a whine at how slowly, so very slowly, Tora moved to fill him. Was this how Hiro had felt last night? Though they had taken far longer teasing him last night. Yukihiro was a little surprised at how quickly he had fallen prey to his own lust, trying without success to push back into Tora's slow and maddeningly shallow thrusts.

“Toraaaa,” he whined softly, but the other moved no faster. Between the hold on the back of his neck and the solid form of Hiro beneath him, Yukihiro couldn't quite catch a full breath, adding to the light-headed feeling of his own arousal. He wasn't going to last long like this, especially not with the way Hiro was grinding against him in slow counterpoint to Tora's thrusts, but he rather suspected that was the point. His lovers' names fell from his lips in more soft whines as he fought to be quiet, Hiro's mouth soon finding his in slow kisses.

Tora leaned forward over him, constricting his breathing even more, but the shift in position meant his lover's cock was rubbing him in all the best places, so he didn't care. He felt Hiro doing something and suddenly Tora's pace changed to hard, fast, sharp thrusts that had him seeing stars. The pleasure overwhelmed him, hot release pouring over him in a white wave, leaving him dizzy with pleasure. Only a few more thrusts and he felt Tora's release within him, another purr of pleasure rolling through him as his lover pulled back, slowly rubbing along his spine. Finally, he could take a full, deep breath, one heavily scented with sex and sweat, and it was perfect. 

“Hiro?” he mumbled, nuzzling into the other man's throat.

“I'm fine,” his lover murmured, carding fingers through Yukihiro's hair. “I've got everything I need right here, just relax.”

“Sap,” Yukihiro mumbled, but he didn't move, humming at the feel of Tora cleaning them both. And when Tora finally laid down beside them, he had to agree that Hiro was right - everything he needed was right there.


	6. Chapter 6

Uruha was supposed to be going through a couple of digital cookbooks, looking for ideas for new meal options, but the truth was he was having a hard time taking his eyes off his roommates at the moment. The two really couldn't be more different if they had tried. Yuuki the agnostic Shinto-Buddhist libertine, in tiny shorts and a loose black sweater that managed to both reveal and conceal at the same time, brash, loud, and unafraid to take from Uruha anything he wanted, from food to hugs to sex. And then there was Elsa, the modern modest Muslim, wrapped in loose skirts and a long-sleeved, high-necked blouse, still shy with both of them and having a hard time acting like Yuuki was a woman when she knew he wasn't. The language barrier wasn't the only thing keeping him from getting closer to her, but despite what he knew Raikos wanted, he respected her boundaries; when she was ready, she would come to him. After what Yuuki had told him he had pieced together of her past, offering her his continued patience and understanding was the least Uruha could do for her.

Which wasn't to say things were easy between the three of them. Yuuki and Elsa looked at the universe in very different ways and even after over a week together, it was still making for friction. They had settled for the moment, but that was only because Yuuki had just come out of the shower and was allowing Elsa to do his hair, a concession to the fact that they had needed to cut her own hair so short she had burst into tears upon seeing it. The long braid would be a mess by morning, but that wasn't really the point.

The screen flashed bright red for a second, grabbing Uruha's attention, but the cookbook was back on the screen, just as he had left it. Maybe he had imagined it? Maybe he was more tired than he thought, though considering it wasn't even midday, that was a bit problematic. Lowering the datapadd to his lap, he closed his eyes a moment and rubbed his temple. 

“Headache?”

“I'm fine, Yuuki,” he mumbled, though he couldn't really find it in himself to feel surprised when fingers alighted on his temples a moment later, gently massaging.

“Kou-chan is so stubborn,” Yuuki murmured, pressing a seemingly chaste kiss to his forehead. “Would it really kill you to admit when you're in pain?”

“It's nothing, I'm fine,” he demurred, though he did nothing to push the other man away. 

“You're full of shit is what you are,” Yuuki countered, chuckling softly even as he moved around him to start working on his shoulders. “If I have to suck you off on this couch, Elsa-san really _won't_ ever forgive us.”

“You really are impo-,” Uruha started, cutting himself off mid-word when his eyes opened to another flash of solid red on his screen. 

“Mm, what was that dear? Another compliment stuck on your tongue~?”

“Not everything has to be about sex you know,” he muttered, glaring at the screen that once more looked completely normal. Was the computer system just screwing with him? But why would it do something like that? On the other hand, what other possible explanation could there be? Once could have been his imagination, but twice ... twice seemed unlikely, even for him.

“Well what do you expect from an unreformed ex-hooker?” Yuuki half scolded, clearly unaware of what was happening. Or else Uruha really was losing his mind and there was nothing happening except for his eyes playing tricks on him. He wasn't sure which possibility was worse.

A sharp retort died on his tongue as the screen went completely black. A flashing cursor appeared, blinking at him a couple of times before kana started to appear the same as if he were typing something himself.

_/: If you can read this, cough and say peppermint._

Uruha blinked, but the screen didn't change, the words fading a little while the cursor kept pulsing at him. How completely ridiculous, like he was going to obey such ridiculous instructions just because they had appeared on his screen.

_/: Please. It is important._

He felt ridiculous, giving in to a blinking cursor, but then again, what could it hurt, right? Or so he told himself as he faked a cough and mumbled the word.

“What was that?” Yuuki asked, frowning at him.

“I could use some coffee. Peppermint mocha maybe?”

“You can make that shit yourself,” Yuuki grumbled, moving away from him then and Uruha had to suppress the urge to grin; Yuuki hated when he drank coffee, said the bitter taste lingered in his mouth for hours no matter how much sugar he put into it. It was perhaps a little petty of him - and more than a little self-defeating, since kissing Yuuki was a thoroughly enjoyable experience - but sometimes he just needed that buzz that only coffee could give him.

_/: Thank you. Further instructions to come at dusk. Save the coffee for later - you won't be getting much sleep tonight._

Uruha frowned at the words on his screen, but when he tried to find some way of writing a response, the screen went back to his cookbook. How completely bizarre, he really didn't know what to make of it. Someone had clearly cracked into Raikos' computer system, but who? And why? Setting down the pad, he walked over to the window and glanced around the yard. Nothing out of place, nothing unusual at all. Had they been using the internal sensors then? To what end? The whole thing felt increasingly surreal the more he thought about it. Which meant it was probably time he found something else to do with himself. Giving up on the coffee for now, Uruha walked over to where Yuuki was semi-sulking, sliding arms around the smaller man from behind and nuzzling his cheek.

“All right, all right,” he cooed, slipping a hand under Yuuki's sweater to press flat against his stomach, “you don't have to make that face, I won't have any coffee, princess, I promise.”

“Not like it matters, right?” Yuuki muttered and Uruha frowned, surprised to hear such bitterness in the other man's voice. “Not like I mean anything to you, not like what I want means anything. We're slaves, prisoners, the only thing Raikos gives two fucks about is you getting me pregnant. If we were in Tokyo right now, would you even look at me twice?”

“I don't know if I'd've even been able to look away in the first place,” Uruha confessed softly, pulling him even closer against his chest. They had to be so careful, still not sure how closely they were being monitored, but this much, Uruha's attraction to the smaller man, was something he didn't have to fake. They had fallen into a sexual relationship far sooner than Uruha would have wanted under normal circumstances, but he couldn't say he regretted it.

“Not that you would have noticed me, I'm sure,” Uruha added with a soft chuckle. That was enough to get Yuuki to turn around and give him one of his 'you're such an idiot' looks.

“Please. You're gorgeous, I'll bet I'd've had to beat off the competition with a stick just to get close to you,” Yuuki countered with a huff, plucking a bit of lint from Uruha's shirt. 

“You say that now, but this? This is all you, Yuu-chan,” Uruha murmured, leaning in for a brief kiss. “Back in Tokyo I was just a shy little science nerd, completely unstylish. You're the one who picked out my wardrobe, styled my hair, taught me to put on eyeliner, remember?”

Yuuki's eyes narrowed a moment, and then a devious grin blossomed. “If that's true, then that just means I would've had you to myself. Good. I hate sharing.”

As if on cue, Elsa chose that moment to cough loudly and announce something, probably that she had finished cooking lunch. Yuuki's scowl was ferocious, but Uruha wasn't about to break the fragile peace between his two roommates for something as petty as Yuuki's dislike for the woman. They were stuck with each other, he was determined to make the best of it.

~*~*~

Uruha had nearly forgotten the strange messages by the time dusk fell. He and Yuuki had settled on the couch together with the console, semi-cooperatively playing a silly match-3 game, when the screen flashed red twice, then went completely blank.

“What th-,” Yuuki started but Uruha quickly hushed him, not wanting him to give anything away in case the other sensors in the room weren't affected by whoever and whatever had taken control of the console.

_/: System is still watching, act natural. Change into comfortable travel clothes, have that coffee. Eiko-chan will flash your window when the system is dark, she'll meet you at the back door if the boss misses you. Eat light, it's a long hike cross-country to the extraction point._

Uruha read the words to himself twice, but they didn't change. If someone was setting them up, they were doing a very good job of it. Too good.

“Do you really think...?” but he couldn't make himself finish the question. If they really were still being watched....

_/: Boss says you have about an hour. Watch for Eiko-chan's signal._

The words stayed on the screen only just long enough for Uruha to read them and then they were back to their game again. A beat and then Yuuki snatched up the tablet, swiping out of the game as he stood from the couch.

“I need another shower. It's your turn to cook, Kou-chan, you know what I like, ne~?” he said with a wink. Which was probably as good an excuse as Yuuki was going to get for changing out of clothes that definitely weren't suited for any sort of jungle hiking. 

Uruha slid his gaze sidelong to where Elsa was curled up against the headboard of their bed with her own datapadd, probably playing a game of her own. He felt bad for practically ignoring her the last couple of days, but there wasn't much he could do about it. She wouldn't let Yuuki translate for her, didn't really want to associate with Yuuki at all most of the time, and he didn't know what to do with her anyway. Her long skirt really wasn't ideal for a long hike, but he didn't know how he, or rather how he was going to get Yuuki to suggest she change into pants that, now that he was thinking about it, he wasn't even sure she had. Had they ordered her any? He couldn't remember.

But he was wasting time. Stifling a sigh, he flipped through a few screens of meal options before settling on a properly light weight meal, selecting the replicator over actually doing the cooking himself since he wanted a shower and change as well before whatever was set to happen actually happened. Setting out the meal, he gently caught Elsa's attention and indicated the table before stepping into their attached bathroom. 

“Don't suppose you still need me to wash your back?” he asked as he quickly stripped out of his own clothes. He was actually surprised by the brief glower Yuuki shot in his direction.

“You let the replicator do the work again, didn't you? Cheater. That's it, it's just going to keep being your turn until you actually _cook_ something,” Yuuki grumbled, though there was a lightness in his eyes that put the lie to his words.

“I try to spare you from my cooking and this is the thanks I get?” he mock huffed, stepping into the shower with him.

“I think you're just making excuses,” Yuuki countered as he turned on the shower, then pressed in close against him, lips brushing against his skin. “Just like you came in here for one last fuck?”

“I came in here for the same reason you did,” he said, careful to keep his voice low enough not to make it past the sound of the shower itself. He couldn't tell if Yuuki was genuinely irked by the idea or not, or if there was something else going on in his mind. Although the thought of Yuuki _not_ being interested in having sex with him was a little difficult to process. And he wasn't at all sure there was any good reason why this should have to be their last time just because they would soon be free of Raikos.

“If this works ... you go back to your life ... I go back to mine ... we won't meet again,” Yuuki murmured and Uruha ached at the note of pain he thought he heard in the other man's voice. Pressing Yuuki against the shower wall, he leaned down for a heated kiss, humming at how quickly the other opened to him. Hands slid down over slick skin and Uruha smiled at the groan that fell between them when he pressed his thigh between Yuuki's legs. He hadn't actually thought this through enough or else he would have thought to grab the lube before stepping into the shower. Not that he had originally been planning any of this, which might well have been his first mistake. 

As suddenly as it had started, Yuuki was shoving him away, arms locked at full extension and head hanging between them.

“No,” Yuuki said, almost gasping, “I won't be a pity fuck.”

“Yuuki....”

Another sharp push and then Yuuki was fleeing the shower completely. As much as a part of Uruha wanted to chase after him, he couldn't help thinking maybe it was better to give the man his space. Maybe Yuuki was right, maybe it was better to just end things now. For all he knew, they were all wrong for each other. After all, they had only known each other for a little over a week, so how much could he really say he knew the man? 

Shaking off such melancholic thoughts, Uruha quickly finished his own shower then changed into jeans and a tank top with a light button-up over the top to protect from underbrush. As quickly as Elsa had disappeared into the bathroom herself when he had stepped out of it, he wondered if Yuuki had risked the computer figuring things out by simply telling her plainly what was about to happen. Or what they at least hoped was about to happen. Anything that could make this situation easier....

~*~*~

Tora pushed his thumb against the tsuka, reflexively checking his sword's fit. They had spent the whole day tearing down camp and hauling their gear to the extraction point. Just before sunset, a silent Nathi-built courier, sleek as a river and twice as dangerous, had rendezvoused with them, quickly ferrying their extra gear back up to space before going to ground, ready to spirit them away at the end of the operation. He glanced back in the direction of their extraction point, unable to stop a frown at the knowledge that, despite his orders at the start of the mission, Satoshi had managed to talk _Hekate_ 's captain into letting him pilot the extraction boat. Not that he thought it had been particularly difficult for the young airman, considering his last qualification trails and natural charm, but that wasn't the point.

“Oh stop making that face, Tora,” Yukihiro scolded with a soft chuckle. “You knew he wasn't going to stay out of it, not if he could find a way to help. And T'bree likes him.”

“The Nathi boats _always_ like him,” Tora grumbled, though there was no real anger left in him for it. Truly piloting a Nathi-built ship took more than just technical abilities and if Satoshi had told _Hekate_ 's captain that he could get better performance out of the little courier than anyone else in the battlegroup, well, he wouldn't have been entirely lying. And if things _did_ get squirrely on them, Satoshi's ability to link would give them a distinct advantage over a mundane pilot. Didn't mean Tora had to like the thought of an already injured team member potentially being in the line of fire, though.

“All right, boss. Eiko-chan's in position,” Ichiro said, holding up a wrist unit. “I can sleep his whole system on your signal, he won't know anything has gone off for at least three hours and probably more like six.”

“You all know the plan,” he said, momentarily catching each of his team member's eyes, ending with Hiro and a brief nod. “Yuki....”

“I know, you two are clean up. We fall back to alpha, wait an hour, then get the civvies out and come back to beta,” his second said with a scowl that told him plenty. Yukihiro hadn't liked the details of what he and Hiro were planning to do, but he had also agreed not to try stopping them or talking them out of it, not once he had heard _why_. Tora was hoping the beta plan wouldn't be necessary, but he wasn't going to go into an operation without every possibility covered.

“Just promise me you'll be careful,” Yukihiro mumbled, for a moment falling out of his special forces persona and letting himself be their lover instead of their teammate.

“Always,” Tora promised, briefly squeezing his hand.

“Hey, I've always brought him back before, right?” Hiro added with a cocky grin.

“... whatever you guys are plotting that us poor mortals aren't supposed to know about for I will probably regret even asking what reason, watch yourselves,” Ichiro added with a grumble. “All automated defense systems will be offline as long as I can hold control, but the minute we break ten klicks, I'll be out of range. Not to mention those Anadolian fucks have the mass advantage.”

“Worry about the civilians,” Tora said. “Comms to stealth, I'll give you two clicks when we're in position.”

On an impulse, he leaned in to brush a quick kiss to Yukihiro's lips. He appreciated the worry, but it wasn't necessary. He and Hiro would be just fine, Hiro wouldn't allow for anything less.

~*~*~

As something of a general rule, Yuuki didn't believe in having regrets. Holding on to regret meant living in the past, which was, in his opinion, a waste of time. But now that all three of them had changed, eaten, and even managed to put together a small cache of hiking supplies wrapped in a couple of Elsa's extra scarves, he was starting to regret pushing Uruha away earlier. That had been his last chance, he was sure of it now, and there was no way of changing it, of getting a second chance for one last fling. Assuming, of course, that this wasn't all part of some elaborate game Raikos was playing with them. A snort and Yuuki dismissed that thought; Raikos didn't have enough brains for this sort of thing, obviously, or the idiot never would have believed Yuuki to be female in the first place. As much as sitting waiting was slowly driving him crazy, he didn't want to waste energy on pacing, especially not if there was going to be a long hike ahead of them. Still, it was hard, especially when he could feel the growing anxiousness of the other two starting to meld with his own, filling the air with worry and fear.

Just when he was sure his self restraint was about to break, a blinking shape zipped up to their window. Getting up from the couch, Yuuki leaned in close to try to see the thing more clearly. He couldn't tell if it was human tech or not, robotics weren't his thing, but it was flashing at them in the moonless dark and that was something he'd never seen outside their window before this. 

“Suppose that's Eiko-chan?” he said, glancing over his shoulder. And couldn't help but smile at the way Elsa was already pushing one of their bundles onto Uruha. Turning back to the window, he waved at the small machine, then pointed towards their door, figuring the drone had to have cameras of some sort. The drone bobbed in place, flashed a green light at them again, then turned and dropped down towards the ground floor. Couldn't get a clearer sign than that. Picking up his own bundle, he let Uruha go first, hoping the other man would have a better chance than him of figuring out where to go next, though it was hard to miss the hesitant way the blond had picked a direction for them to go. As tempting as it was to suggest that maybe they should just wait for the mysterious boss they had been promised, the part of him that wanted to be free of this place was adamant they should do what they could to escape on their own. The building couldn't be all that hard to navigate, just had to find a way down to the lower levels, and how hard could that be?

What he hadn't counted on, what none of them had counted on, was just how _literally_ dark the house would be. Whatever the Americans had done, every panel and normal light in the hall was black, only a few emergency strips glowing faintly along the baseboards. It was unnerving, especially with the lack of outside light thanks to a moonless interval. Was the house always this dark at this time of night? Just what did Raikos do after dark that this could go unnoticed? A wet sound from the cross corridor ahead had Yuuki wondering if maybe he didn't actually want an answer to that. They had all stopped, paralyzed with fearful indecision. 

A thin line of reflected light came around the corner first and Yuuki unthinkingly jerked Uruha backwards against the wall with him. His heart pounding in his throat, it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing was a sword, smeared with something dark and, more importantly, in the hands of a human. The sword dropped, the bearer's posture relaxing.

“Takashima-san?”

“You ... you're Japanese?” Uruha said, stepping forward. “I mean, yes, I'm Takashima. Thi-.”

“Introductions later. Stairs are down that way. Just go, don't look around,” the swordsman said. Yuuki didn't have to be told twice, quietly repeating their rescuer's words to Elsa before heading in the direction they had been pointed. He was pretty sure the dark lump they passed was something he didn't want to think about any longer than it took to get past it, grateful when they reached the back of the house. Eiko-chan bobbed in the air at head height, clicking and blinking when it spotted them. Like a dog, it moved a little away from the house, then stopped and came back to them. Yuuki had to bite his lip hard to keep from laughing at the ridiculousness of the moment.

“I think Eiko-chan wants us to follow her. It. Whatever,” he said, reflexively glancing back over his shoulder. The building was completely dark behind them, it was more than a little creepy. Shuddering, he hurried after the little drone as best he could in the moonless dark. As much as he wanted to ask the little drone if she had a light they could use, he didn't want to risk their escape being detected. Yet as they moved across the yard, his eyes managed to find more light than he had expected and by the time they reached the tree line he could almost tell what the dark shapes moving among the trunks were.

“Good girl, Eiko-chan, come to papa,” a voice said from the darkness. The little drone suddenly leaped forward with a chirp, little running lights coming on to give them all more light. Dark shapes resolved into over a dozen people, most of them looking about as rough as Elsa had the first day he had met her. And nearly all of them looking confused and scared as hell, every rustle of a leaf threatening to completely spook the lot, especially the two little boys clinging to one of the women.

“ _Um, Elsa? I don't suppose you know what any of these people speak?_ ” 

“ _Elsa? Elsa, is it you?_ ”

“ _I'm here, Diwa. It's all right, these soldiers are here to take us away from this place,_ ” Elsa said, reaching out to one of the women and hugging her close. 

“Oh good, someone who can translate,” one of the soldiers said. “That should make things easier. Please explain things to them quickly, we need to move on from here. Ichiro, you're on point, have Eiko-chan scout ahead.”

Yuuki bristled at being so casually ordered about, but he shoved the feeling aside; the soldier was right, they couldn't stay here. As much as he wasn't looking forward to an extended hike in the dark with children, the sooner they started, the better for everyone.

~*~*~

It wasn't until all three moons were in the sky that the soldiers allowed them to stop. Uruha felt a little useless, watching Yuuki, Elsa, and another woman whose name he didn't know move among the other survivors, offering soft words of reassurance. Yuuki really had a gift for this, from what Uruha could see, smiling as he shared provisions and comfort. It was a side of the man he would not have expected, would not have believed if he hadn't been seeing it himself. And another sign that they really didn't know each other at all, he supposed.

“Since I'm not sure anyone else will do it, I will. Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, frowning a little at the soldier that had moved to sit beside him. He didn't much look anything like any Marine he had ever seen, not that he had ever met any in the flesh, as it were. For one thing, he was Japanese, the whole unit was, and while none of these three carried a sword, he was pretty sure the one back at the house had been using a katana. These three joked with each other with a casual friendliness at odds with Uruha's mental image of Marine Special Forces commandos, even though he was pretty sure the one sitting next to him now outranked the other two.

“For not giving in, for thinking to run away, for giving us the information and excuse to help these people. I'm Awaji Yukihiro, by the way.”

“Takashima Uruha and really, I should be thanking you. That Raikos ... he's going to be furious when he finds out what's happened, you know.”

“He's not going to be a problem, don't worry about him,” Yukihiro said with a casual shrug that was at distinct odds with the way all three of the soldiers were keeping there eyes open for signs of pursuit or other trouble. Uruha tracked eyes over him a moment, feeling something in him relax just a little bit when he noticed that, while Awaji was definitely _alert_ , he was also relaxed. Someone ready for trouble and confident that, whatever trouble might find them, he could handle it. It helped silence the voice that wasn't sure it believed someone with hair long enough to put up in a fist sized bun could actually have elite military training.

“Ten more minutes and then we really should get going again,” Awaji said suddenly, standing and briefly squeezing his shoulder. “We've still got a ways to go to the extraction point.”

Uruha nodded, grateful for the explanation even if he was surprised by it. He wasn't sure he had much use for the information, but he accepted it with a nod all the same. Their ragged group looked like they didn't have all that much march left in them, though they had managed to fashion a sort of harness for the younger of the two boys, letting him sleep leaned against the blond soldier's back. Uruha knew he couldn't have made a hike like that, but then again the kid probably weighed less than some of the hiking packs the soldier had been forced to haul around during basic training, so....

“Don't suppose he told you how much further we have to go?”

Uruha blinked as Yuuki sat down next to him and offered him an onigiri. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but a part of him had been wondering if Yuuki hadn't been avoiding him since they had left Raikos' estate. Of course the other rescues had needed Yuuki more than Uruha had himself, since he was their link to their rescuers, but still....

“Not in so many words, no,” he said, shaking his head. 

“Maybe you could ask him? I'm not sure how much more some of these people have in them,” Yuuki said, sipping from a bottle of water.

“I could ask, but I'm not sure it would make much difference. I mean, the extraction point is where it is, it's not like they can move it closer or I'm sure they would.”

“... you really don't know much about anything, do you?” Yuuki said, getting up with a snort of disgust. Uruha sighed, watching the man cut through the group to confront Awaji. That wasn't going to end well, he could tell already. Wolfing down his onigiri, he wiped his hands on his jeans and hurried to catch up with them.

“... of your mind?? These are civilians, not soldiers! You can't just expect them to march all night!”

“Yuuki....”

“Don't 'Yuuki' me, Kouyou,” Yuuki snapped back before he could even finish getting the rest of a sentence together. “These people didn't have any warning, they aren't conditioned to this, and a ten minute rest isn't enough. If you people can't extract us from here, then you're just going to have to let them have a longer rest period!”

Uruha watched a muscle twitch in Awaji's jaw as the man grit his teeth and silently listened to Yuuki's little tirade. Not that the younger man didn't have a point, but he could have presented his argument a bit better. 

“The whole point of this operation is to get in and out without being noticed. Do you see a clearing around here where we can land a drop ship? Because I don't. If we extract from here, the ship will have to _make_ one and _someone_ is going to _notice_ that.”

“Well then maybe you should have landed the ship in Raikos' garden and taken us from _there_ instead of marching us out here like a bunch of peasants!” Yuuki snarled. 

“Oh yes, because _no one_ would notice a Nathi drop ship landing in his backyard and then taking off again,” Awaji countered with a snort. “We've covered the worst of the distance, the moonlight and stims should make what's left easier to handle.”

“Stims?” But he could see the realization dawning on Yuuki the same as it had to be written on his face as well. “You _drugged_ us?? What the fuck!?”

“A minimal dose in your water given at this break, you should be feeling it about now,” the soldier said with such a bland look it was almost hard to believe. But he was right, Uruha could feel himself coming more alert, and he could see the effect in the others as well.

“Just who the fuck do you think you are?? We're human beings, we have rights!”

“Technically, at the moment, all of you, with the possible exception of Takashima-san, are property. Goods that I've been tasked to relocate in the most efficient way possible. Which I am now going to resume doing.”

Awaji turned on his heel to walk away and if Uruha hadn't grabbed Yuuki's arm, he was certain the younger man would have launched himself after him.

“Yuuki ... Yuuki, don't,” he said, pulling the squirming man tight to his chest. “Yuuki, stop. He's just trying to do his job. Besides, what do you think you're going to do? Look, this could be a good thing, right? Just... take a breath and then you can explain to the others what's happening.”

He held tight to Yuuki, breathing along with him, until he felt it was safe to let the man go. 

“Don't ever do that to me again,” Yuuki snarled, glaring at him. “I'm not your fucking toy. We're nothing to each other.”

Uruha watched Yuuki stalk off, telling himself it didn't matter, that he didn't care. That Yuuki was right, they were nothing, the last week hadn't been anything but a necessary dance.

Now if only he could make himself believe that so easily.

_Stupid little Kouyou, falling for a pretty face too easily again_ , he sighed to himself. Whatever. Another hour or two and they'd be off this planet. A little luck and they'd never need to see each other again.

~*~*~

By the time Yukihiro got his charges safely herded to the extraction point, he could tell the stims were wearing thin, if not worn off entirely. He couldn't remember if he had ever been so grateful to see a drop ship, though that relief was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that they still had to wait for Tora's return or an hour to pass, whichever came first. Even as the ragged group approached, the side hatch irised open, a gentle ramp sliding out even as Satoshi stepped down from the ship.

“What, you couldn't spring for a healthy pilot?”

Yukihiro ignored the petty jab, pulling Satoshi aside so they could talk without the others hearing.

“You look like you've had a shit night,” the pilot said softly, glancing back at the disorganized line of people filing into his ship. “I take it that's not that guy's first pot shot?”

“You try marching through jungle with fifteen scared civilians,” he muttered, shaking his head. “How is she?”

“T'bree was getting restless, now she's worr– oh. Oh boy. Is that why the boss and Hiro-kun aren't with you?” Satoshi said, a grim look replacing his usual smile. The same high empathy rating that allowed him to link with Nathi ships meant there would be no keeping secrets from him until he uncoupled. And right now, Yukihiro needed him linked in, even if it meant a backhanded violation of civilian privacy.

“Official word is cleanup detail, but unofficially, yeah. Hiro-kun actually witnessed a couple. It's ... not above board, but they weren't going to be talked down. Whatever they witnessed....”

“No, you don't want to know,” Satoshi said, grimacing and pressing a hand to the ship's hull. “T'bree, stop, please, baby, stop.”

It was a risk, touch could carry so much more even when it wasn't skin to skin, but Yukihiro stepped closer and gently rubbed his hand on Satoshi's shoulder, stilling his own mind in hope of offering a stable counter to whatever the ship was pouring into him. He wasn't sure if it really helped or not, but at least Satoshi didn't flinch away from him. He waited in silence as the young pilot squeezed his eyes shut and took a few deep, steadying breaths.

“She doesn't understand and I ... and I can't even begin to make it make sense for her and....”

“I'll remind them you're linked in when they break radio silence,” Yukihiro said with a sympathetic nod. Hiro had a pretty strong empathy rating himself, enough to keep things buried from the casual contact that was the norm around a Nathi ship. But now that T'bree had picked up a sharp distress from one of the survivors and was trying to understand it, it would take both Satoshi and Hiro actively working to keep her from rooting through his memories. Satoshi had enough being dumped on him without having to deal with the memories of a top ranked assassin as well. Two of them if she decided to try a hand at Tora, too. 

“She's getting them settled and gentled down in the cargo space, the lot should be asleep before too much longer,” Satoshi said a beat later, another deep breath moving through him. “We'll be ready to boost as soon as you give the word. Ichiro and Reita are in the forward section.”

“Thanks, Toshi,” he said, giving the man's shoulder another gentle squeeze. He would just make a quick check on their passengers, see if the ship was leaving any of the awake or not and if she was, what they might need that he could give them. And reassure them that in another hour they would be on their way home at last. 

~*~*~

Uruha hated being a bother, but he hadn't wanted to stay in the cargo section with the others, either. Fortunately he had only needed a small amount of quiet fussing to get Awaji to agree to let him join the rest of the drop team in the forward section. Watching the forward screen as they broke free from Ceti's atmosphere, he was glad he had. The vast blackness of space, dotted with countless stars. And then the little ship nosed up further and the hulls of a dozen silver bellies filled the screen. The Terran garrison and diplomatic mission to the Beta Ceti star system. For the first time in far too long, real hope nested within him. He was free, in the custody of UN joint forces, but that was a technicality. It might take awhile, but he was finally, properly, on the road home.


End file.
